In an intriguing departure from conventional practice, which turns out to work very well, the audience join the actors on the stage of the New Theatre this week for a riveting production of Martin McDonagh’s black, bleak play The Pillowman.

Spectators are ranged on two sides of the action only feet away from the distressing scenes of violence and child abuse which, with liberal use of every known swear word, make the piece such famously strong meat.

Reviewing the National Theatre’s first 2004 production when it toured to the Oxford Playhouse, I described the play as a fusion of the trademark styles of Quentin Tarantino and the Brothers Grimm.

This was to omit its rich streak of humour, much of which arises from a gleeful, almost Stoppardian, use of language and a daring subversion of some of the conventions of the stage.

The play has much to say about the processes of writing and its influence, not least in the area of imitative violence.

Its central character is a writer, Katurian, whose short stories have led to his arrest by the police of an unnamed totalitarian state.

As compellingly portrayed by Richard Holt, he is at first mystified by his arrest and the reason for his interrogation by the psychopathic officer Ariel (Will Hatcher) and his less thuggish, but in some ways rather nastier, boss Tupolski (Fraser Prince). Only as the interrogation proceeds do he and we learn that his tales of child murder, some never published, have been horribly imitated in real life.

Could these killings have involved his mentally damaged younger brother Michael — touchingly portrayed by Ashley Wilce, pictured with Richard Holt — who is revealed to be languishing in the next cell?

Tension mounts as this weirdly compelling play proceeds under the taut direction of Charlie Parker. Intellectual interest is maintained throughout by the fascinating questions it poses concerning cause and effect and ‘nurture versus nature’ in the building of character. But its chief delights are the bizarre twists of the plot and the sheer verve of the language.

“It’s a good story, it’s ‘something-esque’.” says Katurian of one of his tales. The same could be said for The Pillowman.

The play can be seen again tonight (Friday) and tomorrow afternoon and evening. Box office: 0844 847 1588 (www.newtheatreoxford.org.uk