A brutal exposé of office life and death

Bull Young Vic

MIKE BARTLETT burst on to the theatre scene in 2007 with a short, sharp drama about a family ripped asunder by bitter parents. He has gone on to write much bigger stuff, the best of which is King Charles III, still in the West End, a modern history play that imagines what might happen if the next monarch meddles in politics.

Bull sees his return to close-combat theatre. It is set in a City office, which, in Clare Lizzimore’s production, designer Soutra Gilmour imagines as something like a boxing ring. Except that in this ring there are three adversaries. One is to be “culled” from the staff in an imminent meeting with the boss. Which one will depend on how they perform, but two of them — Tony (Adam James) and Isobel (Eleanor Matsuura) — have already decided to save themselves by undermining the third, Thomas, played to jittery perfection by Sam Troughton.

This is a lesson in natural history but with people as the hunted and the prey. In the 20-minute delay leading up to the meeting, Clare and Tony undermine Thomas’s confidence by waging psychological warfare on their colleague. Every facet of Thomas’s character is a target. It’s like watching lions circle and bait a hog.

The crunch meeting is beautifully judged. Neil Stuke as the chief executive transmits an air of even-handed ruthlessness. It would be a shame here to reveal how the meeting turns out, but the potency of Bartlett’s conceit and the effectiveness of its execution is undermined by the play’s over-reliance on the mental health of its protagonists. You get the sense that an American writer such as Neil LaBute would have crafted the piece with more control and perhaps more wit. Mamet, too.

Still, as a study in the ugly reaches of human nature it is superbly performed and gripping stuff. And the lesson’s conclusion? That the survival of the fittest rule applies just as much to the workplace as it does to the plains of Africa.