★★★☆☆ As the wellspring of domestic Scandi Noir, The Dance of Death sits at the head of a genre of excoriating internecine, marital or sexual dramas. The number of works that take the Dance of Death as their model show the interest audiences have in these destructive relationships where passive-aggressive behaviour breaks out into open hostility.

★★★☆☆ Last night’s offering at the Ustinov – a theatre rightly famed for it’s theatrical heft – had all the hallmarks of a play that points to something beyond itself.