REVIEWERS are not issued with a ration book to limit their use of phrases like ‘outstanding’ or ‘wonderful’, but even if they were, I would gladly spend much of my allowance on this production.

Five-star acting and a plot that deals with the aftermath of dictatorship in an unnamed (but easily guessed) South American country combine to deliver a performance that is live theatre at its very best.

We live in a country where a strange car arriving at your house after dark usually inspires curiosity rather than fear. In many parts of the world that just isn’t so. Although the nameless country is now officially a democracy, old fears persist and an innocent act of roadside assistance brings together people with a shared and shocking past.

The small cast and intense inter-personal action is well suited to the intimacy of the Salberg, where audience and actors are in close proximity, and the venue was cleverly exploited in the final scene, which I suspect took most of the audience by surprise.

South American playwright and author Ariel Dorfman has personal experience of what happens to a country when a dictator rules, and conventional law and order are ground into the dust – along with many of its citizens.