An eight-year-old boy loves working with his dad, taking down old buildings – that’s the gentle trundling start of this turbulent story of one man’s life, and the people and politics that shaped him.

Mark Thomas not only engages his audience in-the-round by looking every one of them in their eyes, but sits down next to a few of them, converses as if they’re the only one in the room, and often not in a friendly way: intimacy and intimidation.

The often-harrowing narrative and threatening characters remain relatable, and the audience’s discomfort is a major reason why this is essential theatre. It looks at global and local political decisions, crashes them down onto the ordinary men and women who must deliver on them – and then leaves the remaining pieces of humanity scattered around the stage. It’s heart-breaking, incendiary, and brilliant.