Tough Time, Nice Time

Two men sit in a bathtub and talk about sodomy, genocide, and Tom Hanks. If this doesn't appeal to you, best to avoid Tough Time, Nice Time, the new Ridiculusmus show at the Barbican. But why wouldn't it? It's fast and brave and funny and disturbing and very very smart, and I can't think of many better ways of passing 70 minutes no interval do not pass Go. It flies by so quickly that you can't keep up with your own thoughts about what's going on and have to take them all home to ponder later. What's the show really about? A hundred different things - from the difference between Nazis and hypocritical "Ordinary Germans", symbolised by the two characters hard-nosed Stefan and anxious Martin; to the eroticism inherent in the power struggle of conversation; to the seductive impulse to lie to strangers, and to oneself; to the purpose and pointlessness of storytelling, of writing and of movies; to the mystery of how a mobile phone dropped down a toilet whilst being buggered by a rent boy in Bangkok could turn up on the floor of another toilet across town two weeks later, "with twenty-five missed calls". You don't want to laugh in case you miss something and yet you can't help but laugh... This show is only on for a couple of weeks, but it shouldn't be too hard to get tickets - I picked mine up yesterday morning for the show last night. Go, see, laugh, think, and feel slightly queasy.