Corpse! really is as good as everyone says it is

Here’s the problem. Much communication is done online, especially by youngsters, and much drama focuses on communication. So how do theatre-makers represent emails and telephonic chitchat in ways that are stimulating and realistic? The usual solution is to mount blank screens around the stage and to beam the comms on to the boards while the characters crouch over their devices, tapping away. Realistic, yes. Hardly stimulating. When play-goers have seen this once — and most of us have seen it repeatedly — they crave a new approach.

Roxana Silbert’s production of Al Blyth’s spy drama The Haystack projects the text messages just like everyone else. And the show relies too heavily on photographic inserts. Audiences make a deliberate effort to see human beings on stage and it’s unfair to fob them off with snapshots and voiceovers instead of actors.