Plucked as if by fate from the cattle truck train that took the rest of his family to the oblivion of the concentration camps, pianist Władysław Szpilman's extraordinary memoir of survival in the ruins of Warsaw for the rest of the war was made into the Oscar-winning movie by Roman Polanski. This staged version, first seen at the Manchester international festival two years ago, combines horror and beauty to considerable effect by the simple device of pitting Peter Guinness's first-person narration against Mikhail Rudy's piano interludes so that the two appear engaged in a constant conversation of restraint and emotion. Chopin wafts around the theatre like an exquisite reproach to the Nazis. Szpilman was halfway through playing Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor when the German army marched into Warsaw; five years later, the same piece saves his skin when he is discovered by a German officer.
Only a heart of stone would be unmoved by Szpilman's tale of terrible loss and enormous courage. But the power is all in the direct simplicity of Szpilman's testimony rather than in Neil Bartlett's staging. Last time round, the piece was performed in the attic of a 19th-century warehouse, and by all accounts benefitted enormously from the natural atmosphere. For all the added smoky lighting, the Royal Exchange auditorium is a far more unforgiving space, which lays bare the narrative jerkiness of the edited text and the unanswered questions it raises about exactly how Szpilman survived alone and in constant danger. Watching it in a theatre seems oddly cosy, making you feel a bit like one of the rich Jews in the ghetto cafe where Szpilman once played, who continued to party even while others there were dying of starvation.