It’s a long time since I have seen something quite as bad as this one-man show. You would have to be feeling pretty depressed to want to break into the Prado in Madrid and spend the whole night looking at Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings. But that’s exactly what a middle-aged father decides to do. These 14 nightmarishly hideous paintings, created between 1819 and 1823 when Goya was in his 70’s, depict human degradation, brutality and bestiality.
Rodrigo Garcia’s monologue, a very short and acerbic rant against a consumer society, has been stretched to 50 minutes. The actor Steffan Rhodri is joined by two cute Gloucestershire black spot piglets, who constantly upstage him. The pigs get no credit in the programme and no curtain-call; which seems very unfair. They were easily the thing the audience enjoyed most.