The Events, Young Vic, review If there is a part of this job I detest, it's when big shows with wealthy and all-too-familiar stars, who are best known for their film and television work, cause me to decline requests to review less remunerated actors at the country's heroic - but all too often unsung - smaller theatres, such as the Jermyn Street, the Arcola and the Tristan Bates. Enough is enough. I had to choose for this column between David Greig's The Events, on the small Maria stage at the Young Vic, or the RSC's Richard II, with no less a personage in the title role than David Tennant - or "that man from Doctor Who," as Sir Jonathan Miller once witheringly called him. I imagine the combined annual incomes of Neve McIntosh and Rudi Dharmalingam in the former production amount to less than what Tennant makes in a week, but, my goodness, they can act. There is no room to hide on the Maria's unencumbered, unsparingly lit stage, and Greig's script involves a huge amount of talk and complicated, thoughtful nuances which have to be communicated with infinite care. The work is supposedly a response to the killing of 77 people by Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011, and it is something of a "Euro-pudding," with backing from German and Norwegian theatre groups, as well as the Actors Touring Company and the Young Vic. It premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it enjoyed a sell-out run and was garlanded with prizes. It is uncompromising and brave theatre, but, now that it has made it to the capital, its flaws seem more manifest. There is far too much talk and not enough show - a basic mistake in theatre - and Greig manages to insert a profound thought into just about every one of the 80 minutes the piece runs, which soon started to leave me feeling intellectually punch drunk. In the opening scene of Ramin Gray's production, there are 20 people sitting on benches - members of the Greenwich Soul Choir - who are under the happy-clappy direction of a trendy and slightly deranged lesbian "Reverend Blue Jeans" named Claire (McIntosh). Stage left, minding his own business at first, is a character called simply The Boy, played by Dharmalingam. In time, he comes alive. He skips manically; does a great impersonation of a wolf; is spat upon as he lies, shirtless, on the stage; and soon gets to play other roles, such as the vicar's (female) lover. There is talk of rape, Jihads, multiculturalism - "I don't hate foreigners," says The Boy, "I hate foreigners being here" - and eventually we get to the point of it all, as one of his characters considers an act of terrorism as a way of achieving immortality. It is, in parts, seditious and profound, but, all too often, it is unfathomable. Still, it held my attention. Is it all ultimately a bit silly and pretentious? Are its principals able actors and do they give it everything they've got? Yes and yes. Do I think it's important this sort of theatre should be offered to punters as an alternative to the big, mainstream productions? Emphatically, yes. Until Nov 2. Tickets: 020 7922 2922; youngvic.org