Three Kingdoms: Three theatre companies, three languages, three countries and three genres

Three Kingdoms – Hammersmith Lyric, playing until 19 May 2012 [With Munich Kammerspiele and Estonia’s Teater NO99]

Three Kingdoms is an ambitious collaborative work that pulls together the best of Britain, Germany and Estonia in the shape of playwright Simon Stephens, director Sebastian Nübling and designer Ene-Liis Semper. If Simon Stephens is a well-known name on the British stage thanks to critically-acclaimed plays like Wastewater and Punk Rock, the general lack of recognition for the other two is more a result of our insular Anglo-American approach to theatre rather than any lack of talent on their part: Sebastian Nübling works with Munich Kammerspiele, whilst Ene-Liis Semper co-founded Teater NO99 in 2004, and I am reliably informed by Estonian cultural emissaries that they are generally regarded as being towards the top of a vibrant (?) theatre scene in Estonia.

This trio of talents have rather curiously taken it upon themselves to work with a narrative that would not seem out of place airing on ITV in three parts on successive Tuesday nights. Three Kingdoms begins by giving every impression of being a staged version of a TV crime drama; bleak scenes of cold, stained police rooms, dysfunctional domestic relationships and stereotypical Russian gangsters.

As the narrative begins to open out the ambition of the play starts to be revealed. Increasingly the action takes on a woozy, slightly sickening feel as the audience watches events as the alienated Detective Inspector Ignatius Stone (Nicholas Tennant) sees them, rather than his bi-lingual partner, Detective Sergeant Charlie Lee (Ferdy Roberts).