An experimental opera/music theatre version of the late Iain Banks's 1984 novel about a violent teenage boy on a remote Scottish island. Composed by Ben Frost with librettist David Pountney, it's performed by three women and a string quintet alongside an electronic score. The Independent says: "There are no surtitles, and the crude amplification and ludicrously mannered word-setting mangle the sense so that nothing is comprehensible: Frost evidently disdains anything so banal as telling a story or sketching character, both of which should have been integral to the exercise. But by no stretch could this expensive and mind-numbingly pretentious farrago be described as an "opera."" They say: Evening Standard: "Three punky women, more narrators than characters, writhe their feral way through David Pountney's elliptical libretto ... the "orchestra," five moody and minimalist strings, plays second fiddle to Frost's electronic score, pumped out at often body-rattling volume, obscuring the text but establishing an ominous atmosphere. Beholden to its narrative obligations, the piece never quite takes off, but there are striking images. The Stage: "An enterprising and uncompromising staging of a difficult story, this tense, vividly communicated and claustrophobic production is not for the faint-hearted." You say: @AlasdairGH: "easily the best piece of theatre I've seen. I've walked out feeling equally disturbed and turned on. I need a whisky. @Rory_Foster: "Did [The Wasp Factory] *really* omit the crucial plot twist at the heart of the novel, or did I miss it?" The details: to Tuesday; roh.org.uk