When once asked if he thought Ben Travers’ farce, Thark, was relevant, Michael Billington replied that it remains as gloriously and sublimely irrelevant as it ever was. Having watched one of Jack Bradfield’s high octane, packed rehearsals, I have to agree with Michael. Thark’s script is funny, playful and (yes) irrelevant- but this production seems to ramp it up until it resembles P.G.Wodehouse on speed, lines flying, misconceptions throwing the cast into hilarious consequences, and pulling the audience into their wild world of ghosts and intrigue. Try to imagine the roaring ‘20s, haunted houses, jokes ranging from wordplay to horrendous innuendo and characters with names like Lionel and Sir Hector Benbow – and then mix them together and double the tempo.

Thark, a little known 1920s farce by Ben Travers, is wonderfully brought to life in this production- instead of being treated reverentially and as untouchable, director Jack Bradfield and producer Claudia Graham have embraced the play’s absurdity and friskiness, taking risks with the script and tightening up the wording – and it really works. Setting the play in the round, which will work especially well in the intimacy of the Pilch Studio, means the characters are exposed from every angle and forced to move around to engage each audience member and gives the play life and vitality. It also allows characters to appear on and off the stage from every angle, bouncing about like balloons in high winds or a particularly energetic snooker game. Props are hidden amongst the audience, teddy bears are given front row seats. “It’ll draw people in and exemplify the farce,” Jack tells me before he cracks a wide grin: “and it’ll also just be really fun.” This experimentation only enhances the farcical situations and hilarious witticisms, which Jack and Claudia aren’t afraid to change. Not even the ending is spared, being adapted to ‘suit the cast better’ – with the actors’ reactions and mannerisms becoming just important as the script.

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One thing that really seems to bring the rehearsal to life is how much the cast are enjoying themselves – scenes break down in fits of giggles as lines are twisted and played with, and when the play draws to a close people just don’t want to stop. Everyone is drawn in to the play’s infectious, fun atmosphere: and Jack Bradfield is the most manic and energetic person in the room, running from person to person, pointing out a certain emphasis “that would just make it funnier”, and even at one point lending out his glasses (leaving me slightly worried as to whether he’d fall over a chair). With his help the cast are immersed in the script, and the play seems to come to life before my eyes: especially after he’s given the cast his ‘points of concentration’: “just imagine you’re holding in a fart. It’ll give you urgency.” Suddenly all the lines become heightened, more funny and engaging, and I can’t help but be pulled in as the play rushes forward headfirst. And I mean ‘pulled in’ in every sense- for the last scene I was required to stand in as ‘Ronnie’ and get accused and shouted at by just about every other character. If this production is anything, it is certainly full of surprises. This will be one farcical haunted house experience you dare not miss.

‘Thark’ is on at the Pilch Studio in 3rd week, 3rd – 6th February.

The Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, one of the most exciting spaces in the international art scene, is currently home to an exhibition by Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas. The exhibition, called Empty Lot, consists of a “grid of triangular wooden planters” each filled with “a mixture of compost and soil collected from parks, heaths, commons, green spaces and gardens across London”. It is a striking visual experience; hundreds and hundreds of identical wooden frames contain various amounts and types of greenery and fungi. Nothing has been intentionally planted in the boxes and the main purpose of the work is to find out, given sufficient time, water and sunlight, what “flowers, mushrooms or weeds may or may not grow depending on what is already in the soil…or on what people drop into the structure”.

A scotch egg, split in two by the impact of its fall, lay in the wooden planter closest to the crowd. The sausage layer had blackened and moistened and the yellow marble of egg had congealed. Contemplating the egg as it lay sprawled upon the soil, I understood it to be an emblem of defiance, of protest. Here was the quintessential snack food of the average Londoner – said to have been invented in the very heart of London at Fortnum & Mason in 1738. Here the scotch egg, an emblem of normality, was a form of protest, a desperate attempt to make heard the voice of the crowd member, the city-dweller, the mother of two, the toddler, the student. It was a statement of presence; I was here.

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Neighbouring boxes boasted fresh clumps of green grass, young nettles and even the odd pale toadstool. One box was even home to a family of ladybirds, managing to live a normal life under the constant gaze of the artistically curious. In contrast to these boxes buzzing with vitality, the box of the scotch egg was strikingly “Here the scotch egg was a form of protest, a desperate attempt” barren. Indeed, the broken snack lay alone in the box of soil and rocks. As I stood contemplating this lonesome sausage-based food product, I gradually became aware of its deeper meaning in today’s urbanised lifestyle. This was an example of our struggle, as city-dwellers, to live harmoniously alongside nature. The presence of the scotch egg, symbol of the people, prevented nature from thriving in that particular wooden planter.

The scotch egg, symbolic of both the Londoner and the Londoner’s struggle to co-habit with nature, very much steals the show in this exhibition. I would even go as far as to say that the thrower of the said snack deserves recognition, deserves congratulations on a level that far exceeds that of Cruzvillegas. Yes, Cruzvillegas provided the environment, provided the initial concept, but it was the thrower of the scotch egg that provided the art.

Rembrandt painted this image of the Prodigal Son in the final two years of his life. This life had followed a story of riches to rags. His early adulthood brought fame, popularity and wealth. Yet this early success was followed by misfortune. Two of his daughters and his wife died; his popularity plummeted and in 1656, he was declared insolvent – his works were sold off at auction.

With this in mind, the figure kneeling in rags in this painting takes on a new significance. Painted towards the end of Rembrandt’s life, this is not an abstract Bible study in picture. It is Rembrandt painting himself, on his knees, at his weakest.

You might have a variety of views of the Christian faith – perhaps for you it’s the mindless drone of a mandatory secondary school service; perhaps it’s the initiator of wars of religion from the Crusades to the troubles in Northern Ireland; or maybe it’s a conservative, judgemental, reactionary force that has left you feeling nothing but guilt. This image captures Rembrandt’s understanding of the faith: a story of homecoming, a wandering child returning to a devoted heavenly father. Its power lies in the fact that it is painted at the end of life, the result of lived experience of faith. Brokenness is juxtaposed with intimacy and grace; the extent of the father’s love is emphasised through the embrace of his dirt-ridden, stinking son.

Yet this is not the only message within the piece. Though the viewer’s attention is drawn man who stands prominently to the right: the older brother. In positioning the father, God, as embracing the dirty son, rather than the slightly detached sombre man, his older brother, to his right; Rembrandt inverts traditional understandings of ‘religion’. Space is used to signify distance, emphasising paradoxically that the religious, well-dressed man is further from God than the broken one. Why is this? Rembrandt is perhaps stressing that, in his experience, intimacy with God is found through humility and not pride. He is also providing social critique: the contrast between God stooping to meet the broken man and the stern brother standing detached suggests that those who stand in judgement in order to have an aura of religiosity have missed the point. We are left with an image of a God of grace and a challenge as to whether we treat others in the way that the father in the painting does.

Sacred art provides a window into the lived experience of faith. Rembrandt’s image leaves us with a powerful, punchy message – it says that Christianity is a story of homecoming, a faith which calls broken people to love other broken people and not stand in judgement over them. I know that as a Christian, I have found this deeply resonant. Rembrandt’s portrayal of utter dependency and grace is what I need and what the Bible describes in Luke 15.