The truck that brought them from the breeding farms waits in the

The truck that brought them from the breeding farms waits in the car park, the driver struggling to light a cigarette as he stands talking to a razatteur, dressed from head to toe in white, except for the red and blue stripe down the side of a well-worn pair of trainers. The truck is waiting. Standpipes kick into action, damping down the beach with salt water in a vain attempt to stop the sand from blowing into town. Even in the lee created by the arena of the old bullring just off the beach, an old man is having problems keeping the sand wet for the Course de Cocade, which is due to start at any time The acrid smell of the bulls rises up from the pens. The Mistral blows straight in from the coast, carrying sea spray and sand into the small town of Saintes Maries de la Mer.

Nor did I believe that Seta would have loaned him Aram's father's coat: she would have understood the symbolism and given him anything but, unless she wanted to incite the conveniently stark row it produces here Small blemishes, though, on a wonderful evening.n To 2 June Booking: 0171-223 2223PAUL TAYLOR. It wasn't clear why, even when he was supposed to be filthy from the streets, this urchin was presented as spotlessly clean. As a little boy (the splendid Benji Hall), he had been picked up off the streets by Seta and, after initial resistance from Aram, became the son they could not have. On the other hand, you can understand why his dreadful past has made Aram want to be his photographer father reborn: he would like his life to constitute an exemplary photograph album.This production, by Irina Brook (daughter of Peter), beautifully echoes the charged simplicity of the writing.

The events from the early 1920s are mediated to us by a narrator (Nicholas Amer) whose interest in the story is eventually explained. It's her task to replace those brutally beheaded people with new lives, a feat of which she is incapable since starvation at the hands of the Turks has left her infertile. Humane, funny and touching, Beast of the Moon presents the claims of both past and future with fairness and empathy.You can see why Seta finds it oppressive to live in the presence of Aram's family photograph from which the heads have been cut out. She's very pretty, but Aram is a little peeved because she doesn't match the face in the photograph he selected.