So I’ve been to the Lowry this evening, to see the National Theatre’s production of Waves. It’s devised by Katie Mitchell and is based on Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves – but it’s been given a very special treatment by the company. with the eight busy cast members acting, reading, soundtracking… and filming their performance, for simultaneous projection behind them.

It’s bewildering to watch – particularly the first half, when the dialogue is twice the speed of any other play I’ve seen and when you’re still getting used to the multimedia format. By the interval I’d just about caught up with the plot, and during the slower, shorter second half I finally felt on top of things.

Perhaps most impressive is the quality of the film – a combination of both the actors’ talent and discipline and that of the technical team up in the gallery (themselves well worthy of applause). The sound creativeness is also unlike anything I’ve witnessed before as every action’s noise is imitated and amplified by actors out of ’shot’.

I’m no theatre reviewer but I’d recommend catching it while you can – and I’m not the only one, with the flyer boasts five-star reviews in The Times, the Financial Times and Time Out. A Mancubist reader told me yesterday, ‘We weren’t quite sure if it was more clever than good or good than clever… or if one of those options was better than the other. We’re still talking about it.’ Sounds about right.

There are only three more performances of Waves at the Lowry: Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 3pm and 8pm. Tickets are £18-£22 (it’s worth paying the extra) – click here to book.

UPDATE: Here’s a promo video on YouTube, which gives a little bit more indication of what Waves involves.