Based on the book Fahrenheit 451, this piece had the ritualistic feel of a firework night.

Walking into the centre of a cleared space with hundreds of others to watch a show based around burning and an overarching element of anti-establishment, the audience was introduced to a fictional society that wanted to ban books.

As one entered the Preston Barracks a stunning post-apocalyptic area revealed itself complete with TV aerials with books hanging from them, loud sirens and slogans.

The area was split into three “stages” and each area was used throughout with large ladders and characters moving through the crowded space.

It felt like a dictatorship rally, and the beginning was spectacular and intimidating.

The crowd became part of the piece, ruthlessly moved and intimidated by the firemen who burn the books.

Unfortunately as time went on it rather lost momentum.

The storyline was almost tiresomely predictable with the feeling of a rally became lost as the storyline progressed.

For a celebration of the written word, the writing really lacked any beauty and was horrifically over-simplified.

The warnings were unoriginal, and the symbol of the book being burned seemed oddly irrelevant. The society we are in has moved on almost completely from books already. As one member of the audience joked: “Why don’t they just get a Kindle?”

A visually stunning piece, but one severely lacking substance.

Three stars