WITH around 20,000 people in the North East affected by the HIV virus and ten per cent of those developing the full-blown AIDS virus, this is a topic as relevant today as it was back in the 1980s. Straight or gay, male or female, this horrendous disease does not recognise sexual preferences as it wrecks the lives of carriers and of those close to them.

Writer Steve Burbridge has based this excellent play on the personal accounts of North-East men with the disease. Thankfully HIV, although incurable, is a treatable disease.

Testing times has a double meaning; testing as in being tested for a sexually transmitted disease and testing as to the turbulent and difficult times for the person and their loved ones when diagnosed with HIV.

The story is told through 20-something Dominic (Christopher Strain) and the effects on his partner, Chris (Jamie Brown), and mother, Brenda (Pauline Fleming).

Through a series of monologues and informal interjections we witness the tumultuous, but ultimately loving relationship between all three. The performances of Strain, Brown and Flemming are wonderfully sincere and so believable that you are instantly immersed in their world.

Burbridge, who also directed this moving piece, enters dark territory in the second half as the trio deal with the disease and, as important, their own feelings. This play is not for the faint-hearted: medical facts are related in graphic detail.

Frank and funny, poignant and provocative, Testing Times chronicles the journey from anger, fear and despair to acceptance, strength and hope. This no-holds-barred and thoroughly absorbing piece of theatre fully deserves many more runs.

Runs until tomorrow.

Ed Waugh