Yes we can. Then suddenly we don’t

Daniel Nelson

Yellowfin is a hoot.

It’s a short, funny, brilliantly acted play about what to do with one of the last remaining cans of tuna on Earth, in the wake of the sudden disappearance of fish from the seas.

It’s absurd but distressingly sharp-edged. It is, as director Ed Madden says, a sashimi knife of a play.

Oddly, Marek Horn wrote it in a nine-day dam-break of creativity in 2005. It’s taken years to reach the stage, perhaps partly because only outstanding performances can make it leap from the page, but praise be to everyone concerned with its production at Southwark Playhouse.

The set-up is simple. Three US senators on Capital Hill (Let the record show) sit at one end of the strip of stage that divides the audience, grilling a man accused of trading rare ocean fish. The man is insouciant, disrespectful and scarred by a murderous memory.

It’s just dialogue and a can. But just below the coruscating exchanges are disturbing ripples of concern and debate about over-fishing, biodiversity and science-constructed food.

Those issues matter, and give the play a deliciously tantalising bite.

As Madden says: ”Perhaps, however frighteningly, it will only grow in relevance … Keep an eye on your fish.”

* Yellowfin, £22/ £18,  is at the Southwark Playhouse, 77-85 Newington Causeway, SE1, until 6 November. Info: 7407 0234/ https://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/show-whats-on/yellowfin/