There is a 40-foot shipping container sitting outside the Young Vic. Step inside and you will find yourself somewhere in Europe, travelling in a van with five illegal immigrants, en route to England. You will also find a production that starts strongly and has the best of intentions, but turns out to be a listless and surprisingly tension-free affair.

Rather than making the most of the pressure-cooker environment these characters (and their audience) now face, Clare Bayley has assumed the location will do this work for her. So instead of thickening the atmosphere - creating a cauldron of panic and suspicion - Bayley’s script focuses on her characters’ back histories and the political contexts back home. It makes for an informative show that is certainly inventive in spirit, but not nearly as frighteningly persuasive as it could have been.

The basic premise is a good one: there’s no doubt that a cramped, pitch-black container is an inspired and useful location for a piece on human trafficking. Unfortunately, the opening scene is the only time this location is used to great effect: the door is slammed shut, the lights extinguished and a buzzing silence gradually builds, as the rain slams down on the roof above. It is a brilliant opening, but as soon as the script kicks in, everything gets a bit safe: the dialogue is too neat, the characters too easy to distinguish as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and the journey too smooth. Bayley chooses to educate rather than overwhelm her audience – an approach that allows the spectator to take a mental step-back from what could have been an emphatic sensory experience.

The overtly political dialogue doesn’t quite work and the characters seem too measured, too contained, given the extraordinary situation they now face: ‘Some people are good, some are bad – but governments, they’re bad any place you go to.’ A few of the actors dig bloody deep and find something extra and urgent to their roles. Chris Spyrides is excellent as the Turkish agent from the ‘outside world’, whose job it is to ensure the immigrants’ safe passage. His is the one performance shot through with fear, and it is only when Spyrides’ edgy, angry, throbbing character appears that we start to understand the real danger these characters face and the risks they’re willing to take to reach England.

More jolting terror and less measured reflection is needed here, as well as a committed attempt to match the dialogue with its surroundings. Site-specific theatre has massive potential, but it is still a stage like any other and still needs a play – not just a promising concept – to fill the space and bring it to life. 

Till 30 July 2009