There is a fruitful genre of plays and TV shows where everybody who has seen them picks one word to describe the basic situation, and adds "from hell".
So Ricky Gervais's BBC series The Office was described as featuring the boss from hell, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was the marriage from hell, Abigail's Party was the party from hell, and so forth.
Mike Bartlett's play Bull, presented by Ringside Theatre Company at the Queen Mary University of London campus on Gozo from Thursday to Sunday, is definitely the office - or possibly the colleagues - from hell.
Like the other entries in this genre, parts of it are hilariously funny, and other parts go to an altogether darker place.
And while the darker parts of The Office and Abigail's Party were usually moments of toe-curling cringe, Bull's darker parts depict the vicious games-playing, the falseness, and the sycophancy that can underlie a toxically run office where employees are encouraged to compete against each other.
Edward Thorpe plays Thomas, the only likable character in the play. His fatal flaws are his weakness and lack of confidence, and as such, he is selected to be the victim by his ambitious colleagues Isobel and Tony. Thorpe's depiction of insecurity, goaded by mounting humiliations until by the end he is completely inarticulate and wrecked, is outstanding, authentic, and beautifully judged.
Kelly Peplow and Alex Weenink, as the appalling Isobel and Tony, would at first appear to have the easier job, since they do not go on any emotional journey or change to any great extent in the course of the play.
It would have been easy for them to be nothing more than heartless bullies, escaped from some peculiarly savage episode of The Apprentice. But both actors are so skillful in depicting a mixture of techniques.
Both actors subtly convey that Isobel and Tony are not what they believe themselves to be, but deeply damaged people who need their victims to fill an inner emptiness. Particular mention should be made of Kelly Peplow's final speech to Thomas, where all pretense is dropped and she becomes an almost psychotic figure.
Carter, the boss everyone is so desperate to impress, arrives in the middle of Isobel and Tony's mind-games with a supreme lack of concern or understanding of what they are doing. He is just as much of a games player as they are, only his games are about power.
The audience experiences some brief hope he might see through Isobel and Tony's lies and machinations, but are denied it. Bob Cardona's chilling performance demonstrates that a fish really does rot from the head.
Jayne Giordanella's direction is subtle and never calls attention to itself. She has concentrated on the dynamics of the characters' ever-changing interactions with each other, and the result is a brilliant tour de force, one of the most powerful and compelling productions I have ever seen.
It puts its audience through the emotional wringer, and at one hour is just the right length.
Bull by Mike Bartlett is being performed at the Queen Mary University of London (Malta Campus) in Gozo for one last weekend between November 16 and 19 by Ringside Theatre Company. Tickets are available via https://ringsidetheatrecompany.thundertix.com/events/219075 or via RTC’s website https://ringsidetheatre.com/