Telling the story of artist Francis Bacon’s personal and professional relationship with criminal George Dyer, this show packs their tumultuous eight-year relationship into one hour. Alice Wordsworth directs deftly, employing creative techniques in staging and physicality such as wrestling, screens representing canvases and a tin bath to show both the pair’s conflicts and obsessions. Alistair Hall – who also wrote the play – as Bacon, and Peter Clements as Dyer are both outstanding. There’s tension and intensity in their performances from the first minute until the last as their relationship heads for, as Bacon says, “the last of the chaos”. It’s a terrific, deeply researched show that makes a well-documented story feel fresh and makes the most of the Pleasance Upstairs’ confined space.

Pleasance Courtyard, until 30 Aug.
tw rating 4/5 | [Tom Brogan]