A burlesque mix of black and sweet comedy, song, dance and slapstick that explored the dark reality of a city split in two and under siege. This was a brave attempt to pluck whole handfuls of issues about loyalty, roles and civil war that could spawn a dozen educational workshops. There were black-market traders, black-hearted snipers and western journalists who ‘wanted to know how it felt', set against matriarchal survivors and zoo-keepers, with a simple and slight love story sandwiched in between it all. You could imagine using this in sixth-form Theatre in Education to set off more and more thoughts of war and suffering and human ingenuity.

But somehow the cast, wriggling out of one costume into another as they changed characters, picking up instruments and diving in and out of the city wreckage, seemed to be evading the harsh, desperate reality of the Sarajevos of today. Rejects Revenge were obviously comfortable and practised in their comic routines; and they were funny, but not biting, and the audience laughed and applauded the showtime numbers as if this was another vaudeville entertainment. Which it wasn't, as there were sharp, bitter twists to this tale, protruding from the set pieces like boils too ugly to be burst by the laughter.