Generation vex

IN THE nature of things, no matter how highly regarded a company may be, their productions are bound to vary in quality.

And only too easily one sub-standard show can erase warm memories of a series of good experiences.

But while it's as well for companies to bear in mind that as far as the audience is concerned they're only as good as their last show, some companies do seem to have the knack of coming up trumps on an enviable number of occasions.

They lodge in our brains, and we recognise their names with a sense of warm anticipation.

Coming instantly to mind are Frantic Assembly, Kneehigh, Kesselofski and Fiske, (we all have our favourites), companies whose lapses from their generally high achievements can be viewed as a temporary blip in a notable progress.

And on the strength of only two previous productions here, the new writing production company nabokov look as if they might be among those worth keeping an eye on.

They hit the ground running in April 2007 with Terre Haute, Edmund White's fictionalised interviews between writer Gore Vidal and America's most notorious terrorist, the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.

They followed this last year with Artefacts, the exploration of 16-year-old Londoner Kelly's reaction to and handling of the discovery that her father, previously an amorphous being who could be anything she wanted him to be, was actually an Iraqi and, what's more, wanted her to accept a priceless antique from the Baghdad Museum.

Their new production due shortly at the Drum, has quite a standard to live up to. And it's different again from Terre Haute and Artefacts.

Is Everyone OK? centres on three people in crisis. Daisy's job is in jeopardy, and while she's unsure about what it means to her, she knows she can't afford to lose it. Em has chosen to become a single mum, but is unprepared. And Cameron's hormones are in a stir over the office temp.

Between them, Daisy, they voice a generation's frustrations and uncertainties in a 60-minute combination of theatre and stand up, in which stand up tragedy is as potent as stand up comedy.

Patrons who classify themselves as among the lost and bewildered will find they are among friends when the question crops up Is Everyone OK?

The rest can recall what it was like to have been one of them, or (the lucky ones), engage in a bit of people-watching and be thankful that there, but for the grace of... And at the same time find something to laugh at.

It runs at the Drum Theatre from November 17 to 21.

ON November 20 the Barbican Theatre has a visit from Precarious Physical Theatre and Multimedia with their new show Anomie. Their name tells you most of what you need to know about them, but they employ their physicality, imagery and technology to expound a tale of about six characters inhabiting the same apartment building, and all unaware of each other's deviant behaviour.

You'll have to move fast to catch them – they're only here for the one performance, at 8pm.