Kate Wyver

The script may be perfunctory, and some of it is deeply hammy, but its flaws are forgivable for such a dexterous production, with every technical element ramping up tension and toying with expectations. Every jump scare is earned, every trick embedded in the twisted narrative of this poor, doomed couple. And the fear lingers. When I wake at 3am to a strange light in my bedroom, I pull the duvet tight around my head, refusing to reopen my eyes and repeating to myself that it was just a play.

But this is Gatwa’s show. His boisterous Kit sweats in Zoë Thomas-Webb’s leather two-piece, his every lithe action a flirtation. He lunges towards Will first out of pure instinct, as something to shag, but he grows gentler, softened by his literary sparring partner. Beneath his restless exterior, he hides genuine admiration for his uncertain lover and unmistakable fear for the murky waters he has waded into.

Rules of gravity are forgotten here. Led by David Moorst’s spiky, spidery Puck, who reclaims his role from the original production, the disco-ready fairies barely touch the ground, gambolling instead across bedframes and dangling effortlessly from loops of aerial silks. Their astonishing acrobatics have echoes of the 1970 Peter Brook production of this play, albeit with more brazenly bisexual energy, which sweeps over the show like confetti. In the lovers’ clamorous scene of misunderstandings, Puck amuses himself by floating above them, swivelling the direction of their affections like spinning tops.

While the over-explanatory Q&A format allows clarity for each story, the play is strongest when firm opinions take a backseat, allowing murkier, thornier problems to come to the fore. A simmering uncertainty remains from Drummond’s constant, smirking reminder that none of this is wholly trustworthy, but the continual tease of an unreliable narrator ultimately promises more tricksiness than it delivers. Pins and Needles is a sleek story of debate and denial, but it longs for a slightly sharper scratch.

In the second half of the play, Shakespeare is preoccupied with the men at war, as Antony and Caesar stomp their feet and argue over the future of empire. All heavy drums and the slow-mo clashing of swords, these scenes hold less energy than the more domestic moments in court. For this production belongs to the women. All eyes are on Cleopatra and her loving, giggling servants, who are ready to respond to her every dramatic whim, desperate to put the “odd worm” to their own chest rather than live without their queen.