By Mark Young

Suffering and the unpleasant behaviour of a selfish man is a central theme in this challenging student production which explore the darker side of our sexual fantasies.

While the British theatre spent a century trying to free itself from the past, the late Sarah Kane deliberately turned to Greek tragedy and in particular Euripides' "Hippolytos" as a suitable vehicle for her perverse and shocking "Phaedra's Love". We first meet Hippolytus as a teenage couch potato slumped in his armchair, listening to heavy metal and blowing his nose on his socks. He's proud of his immorality, being indifferent to having sex with his sister and his step mother Phaedra , superbly played by Valentina Ceschi, who seduces him.

Hippolytus constantly moans about a news agenda dominated by celebrities and in particular the Royal Family but continues to be a consumer refusing to leave his own armchair. Condemned as a rapist he's confronted by a gang of lager swigging louts reminiscent of the lynch mobs who roamed the sink estates of Paulsgrove. The pond life, fuelled by the tabloid headlines, dispense their own justice and our anti hero's journey takes him from the couch to the condemned cell with a brief sexual encounter with a priest thrown in for good measure! Hippolytus cries "how can a man sin against a god he doesn't believe in" as he finally pays the price for a life of hedonism.

Lucy Burns' direction fully explores the intensity of this work and its necessity to be set in a dreamlike landscape which is enhanced by the inspired choice of props. The intimate setting of the Burton Taylor studio is an ideal setting for this troubled work which will both shock and entertain you.