Golly. I went to see The Elephant Vanishes at the Barbican last night. It was quite a show. It's an adaptation by Complicite of Haruki Murakami's short stories, performed in Japanese (with surtitles) by a Japanese company. I really enjoyed seeing Japanese people on stage in England expressing themselves in Japanese: it felt like a chance to experience another culture in action.

I've never seen a production that so effectively combined physical theatre with hi-tech. There were TVs and screens for projections that sometimes showed the performers in close-up or scenes from hectic Tokyo life. In one fantastic bit a man lies on top of a fridge (the fridge was a star thoughout - should have had its own curtain call) dreaming of being out in a boat on a lake. Onto the fridge door is projected the dappled rocks below the water. The man sticks his hand into the water as the projection shows a hand comming in and grabbing a can from the lake bed. The hand rises and with perfect timing the man atop the fridge pulls his hand out of the water holding the can! Best of all there was wire work. I'm a sucker for any kind of Peter Pan/olympic-opening-ceremony-style shenanigans where people whizz around in the air. They used it to brilliant effect in this play where people could be in a completely different plane to reality.

There were also two moments that really rang true from my quick trip to Japan in 1995. The first is when 2 characters hold up a McDonalds. Demanding 40 Big Macs they are offered the Teriyaki burger special. That was my first meal in Tokyo (when in Rome...). Then in another scene a man tunes his radio through the dial. The only English language station he finds is the dulcet tones of US Armed Forces radio in Yokohama. How that station used to drive Alice mad!

In a word: Ace!