Mugs Arrows (Old Red Lion Theatre)

Mugs Arrows, the new production from Third Man Theatre, is one long dance of expectation and subversion. If you have to know the rules before you can break them, then this company are perfectly versed in the conventions they repeatedly upturn, using all of theatre’s best tricks to wrong-foot their audience. The sensation of watching is something akin to that half-asleep feeling of missing a step, the ground that was never really there suddenly dissolving beneath your feet.

While punters continue to drink and chat downstairs, the theatre space of the Old Red Lion has also been transformed into a pub – that most familiar and innocuous of settings. This particular pub, we quickly learn, is out in the sticks somewhere; a typical rural boozer, straggling a couple of decades behind the rest of the country. There’s an old carpet, faded wallpaper, karaoke machine tucked behind the bar. Dartboard, pint glasses, a bowl of peanuts. We know where we are, right?

Wrong. Eddie Elks‘ play might look and sound like naturalism at its outset, but it is heading in a very different direction. It begins with the prosaic yet oddly gripping action of throwing darts, as old mates Ed and Pat intersperse the game with slugs of their pints and sparse, cryptic conversation. Ears pricked, we listen out for clues, leaning forward in our seats. The first surprise arrives in the form of Sarah, a newcomer moving out from "the city" and sweeping in the change with her. Suddenly, the narrative gaps that we have begun to colour in dramatically change their hue, and the atmosphere in the room is fiercely charged.

That crackle of tension remains in the air for the remainder of this taut hour and 20 minute piece, rarely allowing us to relax. We are first on edge for all the expected reasons, bracing ourselves for startling revelations and skeletons tumbling out of cupboards, until it is the strangeness of the unfolding action that grips us. Possibility after possibility topples, dodging expectations in a narrative tango that is infuriating and thrilling in equal parts. By its end, the show has become bonkers, bewildering and utterly baffling.

It’s also frequently funny, whether provoking laughter through its black humour or its swift and increasingly surreal handbrake turns. The cast maintain a delicate balance throughout, their performances characterised by the same ambiguity that keeps us constantly on our toes, while comfortably exploiting the comedy in the piece. They are adept, too, at conveying the creeping unease that queasily drives the play, until sinister suggestion finally tips over into brilliantly bizarre nightmare. It might not be fully comprehensible, but it is never less than compelling.

Mugs Arrows runs at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 21 June.