An Unseasonable Fall of Snow at the Maidment Studios

By FRANCIS TILL

Without giving the story away, Gary Henderson's Snow is that rarest of texts, a convoluted philosophical thriller that works.

It's a realm marked out by talents as diverse as Robert Stone, Donna Tartt and Jostein Gaarder, but while some of the genre's product lives happily on film, it often struggles on stage.

Snow is an exception perhaps because it borrows so extensively from popular-culture subtexts: the audience is well set up by a deceptive sense of the familiar. We "know", for example, the significance of the austere set before any action takes place because we've seen it hundreds of times on television.

But it's not so, and that's the point. Or rather, it is a point on a reflective journey to two events, and their consequences, through layers and layers of examination. Detail matters. Facts are concrete. But wait, is that always so?

There are a few moments when the text wanders, caught up in emphasising deception, but they are minor flaws in a glittering little gem.

What's particularly fascinating about the journey set out by the text is that while it progresses in the manner of an onion (the mystery) it augments rather than supplants each previous layer (the philosophy) in an ultimately successful high-wire juggling act of intellect and insight. What's most impressive about the production is that it works, against all odds.

Terrific direction from Heath Jones sets up captivating performances from Owen Black and Alistair Browning. Design from Bob van Bekkum produces a set that is remarkable.

The anti-climax that ends the play is an entrance too far and key lines in the denouement are puzzling, but it doesn't matter.

We know where we are, and it is a more interesting place than expected.