The scene is set by playing the opening credits of X-Files with the soundtrack to Carla Lane’s Butterflies. Yes, it is funny – do try this at home. In the name of art – and aware of a need to get some matched funding – the Sh!t Theatre girls Becca and Louise (let’s just call them Boo-ease) set off to sell their living bodies to medical science, with Bad Science guru Dr Ben Goldacre as their mentor, and the X-files as their inspiration (although who is Moulder and who is Scully needs to be sorted first).

So, the big question: Why do people take part in drugs trials? Money, that’s why. £3000 to take part in Flucamp – which online gets a better review than the ‘very unmajestic’ Majestic Hotel which is on their home street in North London.

Then, to ascertain how easy it is to get onto a medical trial run by a pharmaceutical company, the audience are tested using the usual guidelines. I’m down at the first hurdle (too old). Others flounder because they smoke, drink too much, take recreational drugs, are pregnant or breastfeeding. Finally, only two people have their hands in the air. Urine samples, please! Yes, really…

It’s not easy, then, to get onto a trial. Boo-ease fail almost totally, despite the urgent need. They try Flucamp, they try the dreaded Northwick Park hospital – site of the so-called Elephant Man scandal of a few years back, in which a bunch of healthy young men found their limbs swelling and internal organs disintegrating after taking part in a trial that was probably totally unnecessary. What happens, we learn, is that bad results get lost down the back of the filing cabinet, so drugs get re-tested when they shouldn’t be. We also learn that marketing already existing drugs under new names is big business. Take Serafem, for example – it’s for women (Boo-ease helpfully point out that we can tell because the packaging is pink and the name includes ‘fem’). But it’s just Prozac in new clothes.

The show romps on, an informative and entertaining hour. Our two intrepid researchers are their usual wonderful selves – singing and swinging and getting merry like Christmas, as Maya Angelou would say. The use of video, slideshow and Goldacre’s recorded voiceover is all technically slick. The content of the piece (capitalism and media expose), the investigative tone, and the integration of media elements takes their work a step in the direction of Richard Dedomenici’s. But the play between the two young women performers, the tuneful singing, and the cheeky humour is very much in keeping with Sh!t Theatre’s style – and their beloved lo-tech aesthetic is honoured in the design – tacky model butterflies dotted about, a battered filing cabinet, and the rainbow-striped nylon windbreaker that provides modesty (sort of) for the guinea pigs taking part in today’s experiment.

Great to see last year’s Total Theatre Award winners for best newcomers going from strength to strength – a great show, with a sound message: Don’t do drugs.