The Pillowman at NSDF10 (from Noises Off)

You know, high art and culture are actually the most dangerous and subversive things in modern society. All of this art malarkey seems just as likely to inspire virtue, charity etc. in a person as it does hatred and violence.

A few months ago, a student at my University declared in print that World of Warcraft is notorious for turning players into social pariahs and slovenly wretches – but that's not the only negative effect has on its viewers. More frequently shoot-'em-up games that allow the player to inhabit a violent persona have been linked to an increase in violent crime (as has Hip-Hop, with its glorification of gang turf and guns, cf. In Loving Memory).

In The Pillowman, the idea is that the high artform of the short story is responsible for encouraging horrific crimes. That same student claimed that chess had resulted in more 20th-century deaths than any computer game – which goes to show that you shouldn't believe everything you read. Unfortunately, some people are more susceptible than others to the malign power of art and literature.

It's a malign power that disguises itself in a softer guise (ie. a man made of pillows); appearances are deeply deceptive in this totalitarian world. For a play so obsessed with story-telling (cf. Bad House), there is a surprisingly high number of untrustworthy narrators on display. It's not just the Police that are untrustworthy, but also the supposedly innocent and those that haven't done anything they think is wrong (let's be honest, not a one of them is really innocent).

Martin McDonagh's play might over-state art's prosecution case by making the victim of art's influence a mentally-handicapped person, but James Gamage's sensitive performance keeps this plausible. Undeniably, the dependence Gamage's character has on his brother invests an even heavier moral burden on Chris Cains' Katurian – the artist whose graphic and gruesome words instigate crime, and the brother who must protect and nurture his mentally-handicapped sibling. He is more responsible than most artists accused of inspiring crime, and his plight is so much more interesting for that.

McDonagh's richly dark comic play is a terrifying portrayal of a totalitarian state that refuses to afford rights to its citizens. Its citizens have a twisted set of morals – a world where it's okay for parents to torture their children for years without their other children noticing, and for that to be reflected in the short stories written by the survivors.