I am a big fan of the work of the absurdists. The works produced included some works by some of the finest playwrights the world has ever known- including, to name a few, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett and of-course Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco, the creator of The Bald Soprano.

One of this group of playwrights most favourite targets was the middle class – their insularity and lack of spine.

So it is with the Smiths and The Martins in Ionesco’s play. They are so busy playing mind games between themselves and each other that they fail to see what is happening around them. Or more significantly, they choose not to!

Director Kara McLaughlin’s’ main imprint on this play is to reset it to London circa 1666, the time that the great fires hit London.

As I was watching this fine production unfold I was reminded of another wonderful absurdist play – German playwright Max Frisch’s The Fire Raisers.

Frisch’s play tells the story of a couple of hoodlums who inveigle themselves into the Biederman family home, on the pretence that they are homeless. Once they are inside, Mr Biederman is powerless, and the duo end up burning the house down. Frisch’s play is an incisive parable for what happened in Nazi Germany.

McLaughlin wins good performances from her cast- Richard Cornally and Sarah Farmer play Mr and Mrs Martin, Michael Gosden and Neil Nakkan play Mr and Mrs Smith, Liam Nunan plays the Fire Captain, and Hannah Bath plays the flirtatious maid.

Her creative team – lighting designer Ben Anshan, sound designer James Collins and costume designer Carolyn McLaughlin – make good contributions to the impact of the production.

This strong production put on by the Twisted Tree Theatre (what a great name for an eclectic theatre group), a troupe set up as a platform for alumni of the theatre course at the Wesley Institute, now known as the Excelsia College, played only a brief season at the Pact Theatre and sadly has now concluded.

I saw one of the show’s’ matinees. The bulk of the audience was made up of enthusiastic school students who were treated after the show to a question and answer session with the cast and director before they had to head off.

I hope that they were as blown away by the incisiveness of this absurdist play as I was similarly blown away when I first read Max Frisch’s play many years ago in my final year at school as part of the German syllabus. It’s quite a revelation to see what comes across at first as perfect nonsense end up making so much sense.