Martyr, Unicorn Theatre, London, review: Distressing, provocative and horribly funny

How far should you go in tolerating systematic intolerance?

Benjamin now flatly refuses to do swimming at school. Normal adolescent body issues? If only. The teenage protagonist of Marius von Mayenburg's provocative, horribly funny and distressing play has found God. The “shameless mingling of the sexes” in co-ed swimming lessons is part of the “depravity” on which Benjamin (alarmingly well-played by Daniel O'Keefe) has declared a holy war.

The piece trains a mordant eye on how his zealotry escalates and on how the school authorities botch their search for the right way of addressing one of the key problems for a secular, liberal society: how far should you go in tolerating systematic intolerance? Baited by Benjamin for her presumed Jewishness, science teacher Erica White (Natalie Radmall-Quirke) tries to beat the boy at his own game, setting off a process that inexorably heads into disaster.

Mayenburg first started thinking about the piece in the wake of 9/11. But it cleverly uses Benjamin's dogmatic, highly selective rantings from the Christian Bible as a way of demonstrating that all monotheistic religions of the Book are susceptible to dangerous distortion. Ramin Gray's pitch-perfect Actors Touring Company English premiere is a co-production with the Unicorn Theatre where a predominantly teenage audience on were audibly thrilled, scandalised, appalled and enlightened. Brave programming.

To 10 October; 020 7645 0560