Young Vic theatre, London
Rajiv Joseph’s tale of a captive animal that returns from the dead after the 2003 invasion is bracingly unconventional

There is an exciting wildness to the European premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s surreal black comedy about the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Firstly, an animal is played on stage, a tiger shot in a Baghdad zoo that returns from the dead to haunt the US marine who pulled the trigger. Secondly, it talks. Wisecracks, in fact, and interrogates the existence of God. A twisted version of Life of Pi? Certainly it’s less of a dream than a nightmare in which anything could happen.

And things do lurch from one thing to another with illogical effect. To add to the frisson of unpredictability, Kathryn Hunter performs as the tiger after David Threlfall bowed out, until further notice, due to illness. The part was played on Broadway in 2011 by Robin Williams but Hunter brings her own comic swagger.