When a boy takes a girl for a first date on a rubbish dump, it's pretty clear what he has in mind. He wants to expose the pointlessness of consumerist society, force her to recognise the layers of junk that people hide themselves behind. And then have sex.
There is a gauche predictability to this 1967 play by Austrian writer Peter Turrini: just as you know that Evie will spend the first 20 minutes asking Adam why he has brought her to a rubbish dump rather than a nice restaurant, you know that the pair will proceed to strip each other first emotionally and then physically bare. That the actors in this production aren't actually naked, but wrapped in distractingly misshapen fat suits, strikes the only note of surprise.
Though the shape of the piece, and its complaints about modern society, are glaringly obvious, there is much in the texture of Rachel Briscoe's adaptation that is affecting and psychologically acute. She dismantles Evie's image of a perfect life with agonising precision, exposing the self-delusion not only within the character, but behind every credit-crunch headline. And while Adam mostly comes across as an aggressive, almost misogynistic reactionary – excoriating Evie for wearing makeup – that is tempered by glimpses of tenderness, such as when tells his mum to eat the two chops in the fridge.
There is an attractive sincerity to Peter Bray and Sarah Savage's performances, though both are clumsy in the choreographed sections; like Chris Gylee's design, this expressionistic element feels too tentative. We may never wholly believe that the pair find paradise – but there's no contradicting Turrini's conclusion that hell is other people.