Chimerica, at Harold Pinter Theatre Lucy Kirkwood spent six years writing this extraordinarily ambitious, rich and entertaining piece, and one gathers from her programme note that it wasn't an easy process. But, boy, was it worth the effort. It's an epic work, ranging, as its title suggests, from China to America. It raises weighty issues but is also a gripping theatrical thriller that holds the audience enthralled for almost three hours; a touching love story; and a cracking newspaper comedy in the great tradition of The Front Page. Joe persuades his hard-bitten editor to let him try to find the "tank man," as a human interest story. The action zings between the two countries at a fast and witty pace and creates a vivid picture of booming China, pithily described as a country that "has gone from famine to Slim-Fast in one generation." But we also witness China's scant regard for human rights, not only in the Tiananmen Square protest, but also in the present, as one of the key characters is tortured for protesting against lethal levels of industrial pollution. I don't want to give too much away, for the ingenious twists and turns of the plot are of the essence here. But the dialogue among the journalists, including by the seen-it-all editor (in a deliciously ripe comic performance by Trevor Cooper), has a witty panache, while Benedict Wong is powerfully moving as Zhang Lin, a dissident Chinese English teacher still grieving for his wife killed in Tiananmen Square. There are cracking performances too from Stephen Campbell Moore as the kind of reckless photographer who will stop at nothing to get the money shot, Sean Gilder as his witty writer colleague and Claudie Blakley as a delightfully scatty English market researcher who becomes emotionally entangled with the reckless lens-man. It's a play that works equally powerfully on both a personal and a political level, and, even seeing it for the second time, I was gripped throughout. Until Oct 19. Tickets: 0844 871 7622; chimerica.co.uk