To criticise Javaad Alipoor’s intricate piece for failing to provide answers is to miss the point altogether: its implicit argument is that it’s impossible even to frame the questions reliably from one moment to the next. It is, says Alipoor, about “men, the internet and politics”. The politics are principally those of jihadism and the radicalisation of young western men, but also examine the American alt-right. To say that such ideas spread “because of” modern communications is as ridiculous as blaming the male Y-chromosome or the nature of Islam. Mechanism is not responsibility. Nor are ideas lying in wait to work their way upon recipients: Alipoor’s fictitious stories show that curiosity can be as much a driver as credulity.

I said “modern communications” back there because it’s not solely about the Net (although distinctions have long since blurred). Alipoor makes his point by joining each night’s audience to a WhatsApp messaging group and asking us to leave our phones on throughout the show. This can lead to textual heckles and distractions, as messagers react as messagers will; however, I was particularly struck by the way the low buzz of chatter and chuckles died away to awkward silence as a chain of venomous, threatening messages appeared in the name of his fictitious American troll.

For a one-hour solo(-plus-technology) piece, it’s phenomenally complex. The fictitious stories alternate with narrative snaphots of prominent figures in the recent development of jihadism such as Seyyed Qutb, with Alipoor “bantering” with us verbally and textually, with pieces-to-webcam and other footage projected on to the screen behind him, and even the occasional messaged lolcat. Alipoor, co-director Kirsty Housley and dramaturg Chris Thorpe show a masterly instinct for pitching each segment of material, for knowing what need not be spelt out and what cannot, and how to compose those vaguenesses and silences into a picture in themselves. Matters only fall apart briefly with an overly poetical ending which suggests that the makers didn’t really know how to wrap matters up. But in terms of number of ideas per minute (both material and presentational) and skill in organising and communicating those ideas, this is one of the most fascinating shows I have seen in an age.

Written for the Financial Times.