The Haystack
Hampstead Theatre, London

AL BLYTH’S debut play may have hit the stage over six years on from the release of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency leaks that inspired it but it still manages to shock.

In it, Neil (Oliver Johnstone) and Zef (Enyi Okoronkwo) are two graduate whizz-kids whose technological prowess sees them rapidly progressing up the ladder at GCHQ’s Cheltenham spy base by impressing their officious boss Hannah (Sarah Woodward).

Dressed in hoodies and tracksuit bottoms, they find themselves “getting the keys to the Ferrari” as they are recruited onto a counter-terror case. They casually intrude upon conversations, trace medical records and relationship histories with chilling ease while munching Maltesers.