Choice: Theatre

Cleansed, Royal Court Theatre Downstairs at the Duke of York's, WC2 (0171-565 5000) 7.30pm, pounds 5 on Mondays

The most scandalous thing about Sarah Kane's latest work is not the sight of severed limbs or flesh-eating mechanical rats but that, despite some creditable reviews, it's playing to houses as empty as the Bates Motel. Perhaps the testaments of trauma from the critics haven't helped: for once, you know that tags such as "one of the most disturbing productions you will ever see" are not journo hyperbole. The action takes place in an unnamed institution whose only purpose is to punish its inmates. Kane is treading on territory so alien to most theatregoers she is bound to have a hesitant following. While praise has been most forthcoming for Jeremy Herbert's stark design, with its ingenious zones of torture and startlingly realised coups de theatre, and James Macdonald's surgical direction, this is not a case of style over content. Kane is boldly lowering theatre's drawbridge and letting the barbarous world in. Someone should be there to bear witness.

Dominic Cavendish