Opening Skinner's Box, Northern Stage, Newcastle

I’M very much in favour of experimental theatre, but experimental theatre about experiments is another matter entirely. A co-production with Northern Stage and West Yorkshire Playhouse, by Improbable, this is based on a controversial book written by Lauren Slater that documents ten supposedly great psychological experiments of the 20th Century.

Some of the studies are familiar, such as Stanley Milgram’s desire to explain obedience to authority by getting someone to give electric shocks to an individual that increase in voltage every time an incorrect answer is provided; and continuing because told to do so even though the escalated voltage is life-threatening. Other subjects question drug addiction, maternal separation, the importance of care-giving, the development of lobotomy and even the validity of psychiatric diagnosis itself.

Laura Hopkins’ simplistic 3D box set is innovative and the first five minutes of action is full of promise as six actors dressed in suits and sporting bow-ties began to squash themselves together into one being, moving in exaggerated slow motion.

However, too much direction from Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson, and the use of the ensemble technique like a baton, blurred the edges of each study so that no individual actor stood out. In fact it pains me to say that most of them fell over their lines more than once, and the, initially novel, slo-mo antics, which continued throughout the production, became increasingly annoying.

The subject matter is factually interesting, whether it is writing suitable for dramatic interpretation is questionable.

* Runs until Saturday, April 30. Box Office: 0191-230-5151 or northernstage.co.uk

Helen Brown