Kiss of the Spider Woman climbs up the water spout to great heights, a perfect piece of political performance that leaves you on the edge on your seat.

Under a political dictatorship, in Argentina, two strangers share a cell. They couldn’t be more different from one another: one, Valentin (George Blagden), is a political prisoner, angry at the regime, the world, and everyone in it. The other, Molina (Fabian Soto Pachecho), is an effeminate gay man in a system that decries him for it, imprisoned after falling into a trap and paying the price for it. Valentin is yet to accept his imprisonment, admonishing his new cellmate for taking the physical and verbal degradation from guards and wardens. Molina, however, feels there is no other way to survive the hellscape they inhabit (“go to hell” remarks Valentin, but Molina knows “we are already there”.)

Molina’s saving grace, the thing he clings onto, is the imagined inhabitants of classical pictures dancing around his head. None more vivid than Aurora (Anna-Jane Casey), a starlet of classical cinema and Molina’s breathtaking idol ever since he was a young boy - making him the original member of Stan twitter, if you will. While the men of the prison dream of their wives and lovers and jealous fantasies ‘over the wall’, Molina conjures his own fantasy of colour and choreography within the walls of his cell. A fantasy that, slowly, Valentin begins to believe in.

The clashing themes of our two dual protagonists in Kiss of the Spider Woman immediately plays them off one another in interesting ways. While both lived a life of abject poverty, Molina clings to the minutia of luxury, his scarves and dresses and pictures, while Valentin is forged by his life into a hardened revolutionary, who if not for the love of his life Marta (Gabriela García) would want all the bourgeoises dead at his feet. Immediately the two clash, and homophobia still runs rampant in militant communism, even if you can’t attribute Karl Marx calling them a slur despite Valentin’s misquote. However, despite Molina’s initial proclamations of being a coward, and utterly unmoved by politics, both come to respect the strength of the other while the threats of those with power over them grow and grow.

While the warden (Jay Rincon) applies more pressure to Molina to rat out his cellmate, the two slowly put down their barriers, and fall into not quite love thanks to the secrets hidden from the other. But still, their bond is forged and tested, and becomes one of the most interesting dynamics I’ve seen on stage in quite some time. Far more than platonic, not quite romantic, fooling themselves and each other.

All this drama and longing is told under the watchful eye of Aurora, and the spider woman. Whilst the majority of scenes featuring the actress are a welcome escape from the harshness of prison life, the titular character is a vicious, animalistic creature lurking in the shadows threatening Molina with his demise. The character blends reality in fantasy in the cells, as Molina interacts with the character directly unlike the other visions of his hero, and the ominous strings that accompany her arrival serve as an effective strike to the hearts of the audience. Despite her strengths, I did feel that Casey’s talents are somewhat squandered by the material - for her billing, she is really a supporting player at best, and the tone suffers from not always balancing the fantasy with the mundane. Still, this is not as noticeable as other moments within such as the morphine tango, a baffling act one endpoint that me side eyeing my neighbour with it's ridiculousness and tonal mismatch.

Kiss of the Spider Woman remains a gripping piece of theatre, one that balances its heart with its camp with its grim seriousness, and with an ending that comes at the perfect time.

Kiss of the Spider Woman runs at Mayflower Studios until 6th June, and you can purchase tickets from the Mayflower website.