Cockroaches have been around for millennia and experts tell us that in any post-apocalyptic environment they are the species most likely to survive and thrive. In William Proudler’s dystopian future world, which has been frazzled by natural events, the remaining humans fortunate enough to survive (the cockroaches) communication is by necessity via radio as the harsh sun-scorched outside world is hostile to all but the briefest foray.

There is a 60’s style house somewhere in Bristol that has somehow contrived to become a creative touchstone to all that live within its walls. With its large living room acting as a performance space, the inhabitants have begun to split off – musical atoms forming highly original acts of no particular genre.

Eclectic, crazy, moody, intense, personal, funny, faltering and finally formidable… the music cooperative Bloom was all this in yet another mini triumph for The Wardrobe Theatre, who seem hardwired to find and reveal risk-taking artists in this wonderfully creative city . . .

One recalls the founding principles of the BBC as, ‘to educate and entertain’. The Last Baguette Company has taken up the challenge on behalf of theatre, in a show which in its brave attempt to explain the near inexplicable and certainly incomprehensible, is science for the interested-but-easily-bored (The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are their nearest competitors for this task). The ‘matter’ in question is ‘stuff’, that is, the stuff you and I are made of.

There is much in Spill that is excruciatingly funny and, to these old ears, downright peculiar – I shall never look at a shower curtain in quite the same way again. But in general we are not invited to mock, but rather to empathise. One of the characters is a poetically articulate gay man who ruefully recognizes that his experiences so far have clearly fallen far short of his aspirations . . . I am sure its multi-talented, energetic cast will have great success when they take Spill to the Edinburgh Fringe.