In Simon Levy's constantly evolving adaptation of a magazine article by Elliot Weinberger (in the London Review of Books, of all places), five actors faced the audience on a sparse stage and declaimed a living history of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The script is built from the words of people involved, from President Bush and his advisers to ordinary soldiers and civilian victims on the ground.

The result was horrific, messy and powerful, while at the same time remaining a restrained, simple piece of theatre.

Even when one already knew much of what was documented here, it was still profoundly shocking to hear it condensed into a single hour and retold in chronological detail.

We slipped from cold statistic to heartbreaking witness testimony, sentence by sentence.

Yet, as one left the theatre - in my case feeling physically sick at the sense of powerlessness in the face of such murderous folly - one couldn't help but reflect on how pointless it is to be told, yet again, how dreadful the damn war is, when there's nothing we can actually do about it.

Individual performances were strong, though only vague attempts at characterisation were made, with actors taking on no more than loose vocal impersonations or accents.

Perhaps the production slightly weakened at the very end, where the material was brought right up to date - even that day's deaths were incorporated - by director Hannah Eidinow, with an over-reliance on Harold Pinter to sum up.

And perhaps the photos projected onto the back wall were weak as well - they were simply not bloody enough to equal what we were being told by the performers.

But overall, this was a uniquely compelling piece of documentary theatre which had exactly the desired effect.

However, What I Heard About Iraq was let down by its position amidst the campery of the Udderbelly. Tiny audience (fewer than 100) aside, the wind flapped at canvas corners and shook the structure, distracting from what was unfolding onstage.

It was a disappointing missed opportunity to present this to a larger crowd in a more formal theatre environment.