Cutting the Cord

Audience members queueing to enter Cutting the Cord are invited to tell a small wooden box where they’re coming from and where they’re going to. What seems like gratuitous cuteness pays off at the end of this engaging and skilful exploration of the world of Sachi, a young Japanese woman living in London. The show has perhaps more good ideas than it can handle. It starts by focusing on Britain’s treatment of immigrants, as Sachi slyly demonstrates how the authorities ask her questions about British history that even the audience can’t answer; then it morphs into a muted tragicomedy about her social life in London, but then a family crisis yanks it in an even more personal direction.

If the show can’t quite decide if it’s about Sachi or about the audience there are plenty of incidental pleasures, such as a garrulous neighbour’s knitting unravelling itself, plus Daniel Marcus Clark’s live score, in turn witty and mournful. By the end, the audience has been quietly but firmly reminded of exactly how at home it is – or isn’t.

Underbelly, 0844 545 8252, until 27 Aug, 6.45pm, £9.50–£10.50 (£8.50–£9.50).