AN impressive line-up of drama at The Courtyard this autumn continued last night with a stunning performance of Bryony Lavery’s award-winning play, Frozen.

This was no easy evening’s entertainment - it is disturbing, challenging and, at times, almost unbearable to watch - with such flawless performances that the line between drama and reality seemed occasionally to vanish.

A three-hander, Frozen follows its trio of protagonists as they move inexorably on a collision course towards each other. Nancy’s 10-year-old daughter Rhona vanished one summer’s evening, a modern-day Little Red Riding Hood. Ralph is a loner with a penchant for tattoos and constantly on the move, who reveals, in horrifyingly graphic detail, how he plans and executes his abductions of children.

And psychologist Agnetha, a woman on the edge following the death of her working partner, arrives in Britain to study Ralph and give a lecture: “Serial Killing - a Forgivable Act?”

Agnetha is studying Ralph in an attempt to prove that childhood abuse can alter the structure of the brain, making his crimes crimes of illness not of evil, symptoms rather than sins.

All three actors are outstanding - Dorothy Lawrence genuinely moving as the mother, Rosalind Cressy convincingly edgy as Agnetha, a woman with a secret of her own, but Jack James dominated the spare set with a performance that was, in the best possible way, terrifyingly real.

For details of what's on at The Courtyard, visit courtyard.org.uk