The Pillowman,
Duke of York’s Theatre, London

MARTIN McDONAGH stands out from other playwrights like a beacon. Original and fearless, and with an honesty so brutal it feels like an assault on polite society, he brings us first-rate excoriating theatre that travels with ease where angels fear to tread. 

The Pillowman, which premiered 20 years ago, is particularly dark, facing head-on the horror of child abuse, murder and torture.

While not normally a fun theme in anyone’s book, in McDonagh’s hands it’s a good night out, with humour and theatrical complexity taking us to places we’ve never been before. 

A young woman, Katurian, is in a police station being questioned by two very dodgy policemen.

Her crime is to have written a series of stories drawn from an overactive imagination.

The problem is these stories tell of vindictive acts upon children — often by deranged parents — and certain copycat murders have transpired, seemingly as a result. 

From this we wander through a maze of facts and misinformation, with Katurian’s mentally disabled brother Michal, who is also in custody, bringing his own peculiar twist to the plot.

Imagination and action, fantasy and reality become so inextricably linked that cause and effect become an infinite cycle like that of the chicken and the egg.  

While writing with immense dramatic skill and literary prowess, McDonagh characteristically reflects something of the punk movement with his ferocious stripping of accepted sensitivities from all his material.

Perhaps this explains the casting of pop legend Lily Allen in the lead part of Katurian.

Although Allen just about convinces with tears and ardent storytelling, she never quite rises to the multifaceted demands of a part that, above all, must engross us through skilful rapport with the audience.

Her face seems to remain rigidly impassive, and she impresses rather with her perfect line-learning than with her penetration of a central and vital character.

The two policemen, however, are a joy and their scenes worthy of Pinter at the top of his game.

Here we get the unswerving brutality of a totalitarian state, the crazed and anarchic power of the police and the wild and wacky behaviour of the violent — albeit damaged — individuals who rise through police ranks.

The humour rages here, always taking us by surprise, amazing and delighting us with its quirkiness and passing trivial madness. 

Steve Pemberton is supremely engaging as demon “good cop” Tupolsky, while Paul Kaye gives an exemplary and wildly delightful performance as his barmy, deranged side-kick Ariel. This is a classic duo. Matthew Tennyson, meanwhile, wholly inhabits the important role of brother Michal. 

This play has many themes — most potent being the essential freedom yet fearsome danger of the human imagination.

The eponymous Pillowman is one such imagined creature: a symbol of (sadly) dubious comfort in the god-forsaken world of the abused child.

It’s a dismal view of life but, in Matthew’s Dunster’s accomplished production, it comes across as enlightening, absorbing and riotous, with brilliant naturalistic sets from Anna Fleischle. 

Dark, daring and brilliant, McDonagh. Occasionally overloaded with ideas but a force nevertheless. 

Pity about the central casting.