The death in 1989 of playwright Bernard-Marie Kolts robbed French theatre of one of its most distinctive voices, which was heard at its clearest, perhaps, in his last, posthumously staged play, Roberto Zucco., writes Chris Gray.

This frightening bulletin from the depths of the Parisian underworld was seen two years ago in a well-received production by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford, in a translation by Martin Crimp (here used again) which well reflects the poetry of the original.

The action focuses on a cold-blooded 24-year-old murderer a real-life figure whose appealing face first caught the playwright's eye on 'wanted' posters displayed in the Paris Metro.

Later, once Zucco had been captured, Kolts saw him again in television news footage of his demonstration on a prison roof, from which he fell to his death.

The killer of his father and mother, a police inspector and a child, Zucco stirred the writer's imagination because of the cool lack of emotion he showed over his dreadful crimes, and for his own nebulous character.

Kolts has him say: "I've always thought the best way to live in peace is to be transparent as a pane of glass, like a chameleon on a stone."

For Alex Clifton, the director of this week's gripping production of the play at the Old Fire Station, Zucco is "a dangerously seductive figure".

So he becomes for members of the audience too, as a result of the compelling performance of Tobias Munthe, his own good looks and charisma effectively harnessed to the task of portraying a man whose vacant stare appears to hide a mind sometimes very much at home.

This is far from being a 'one-star' show, however. All nine actors shine, many in multiple roles, revealing standards of excellence that must be a source of delight to Mr Clifton, the current president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

Danni Mason gives a pitiful picture of an innocent betrayed, first by the rapist Zucco, then by her odious brother (Richard Madeley) who sells her into prostitution her virginity lost, her worth on the marriage market gone to the agony of her doting older sister (the superb Gwyneth Glyn).

Tom Green and Rob Crumpton excel as world-weary prison warders and later as, respectively, a morose detective and a frightened old man accidently locked into a Metro station overnight.

Most assured of all, though, is Bethan Jones as a sex-hungry middle-aged woman, who tries to pick up Zucco in a park and becomes the centre of a hostage drama with comic running commentary from bystanders during which her 14-year-old son (Michael Tweddle) is shot.

The play continues until Saturday and ought not to be missed.