What happens when you mix 20 writers, 10 directors and nearly 40 actors, giving them only 48 hours to create a series of short theatre pieces? This is the question that Sherman Swingers set out to answer, but the event was by no means as chaotic or as unpolished as its description might imply. Indeed, the forethought of the artistic directors and production manager was apparent throughout - the movement through the theatre had clearly been planned with great consideration - and despite the lack of time the overall production felt well prepared whilst containing the crucial vibrancy of new work.

With two routes to choose from, the audience were taken into a variety of spaces within the Sherman theatre: confined in toilets and storage rooms, led down whitewashed walls into offices and stairwells, and brought outside the theatre itself. Both routes were evenly matched in quality, though the Green route was perhaps a little more rounded in its exploration of this year’s theme of ‘Is the future Bright’, beginning and ending with pieces that explored the fear of the future and connected it with the relationship of a couple. But by no means were the themes used repetitive, and it was interesting to see such a wide interpretation from the same starting point. For those who took both routes there was also a nice touch of glimpsing characters from the other route on your journey, which worked to create an image of moving through a mythic theatre populated by stories imprinted within the individual spaces.

Faced with such a variety you have to expect that you are not going to fall in love with every piece, but ultimately with such a short space of time the pieces needed to have immediacy, simplicity and focus on the chosen relationship with the audience. Swingers really emphasised the core aspects of what makes good theatre, and the pieces that were the most successful were those whose use of form and space felt directly linked to the dramatic content of the piece.

Elin Phillips in The Angel Under The Stairs, written by Lotty Talbutt and directed by Matt Ball.

Welcome to the Future, written by Paul Jenkins and directed by Ryan Romain; Futurophobia, written by Alun Saunders and directed by Ian Staples; and Bubblewrap written by Tracy Harris and directed by Anna Poole, all proved that characters whose interaction with each other is charged and intense will always be compelling to watch for an audience. Each of the pieces took the future of a romantic relationship as their central theme, and explored in different ways the tension between doubt about the future and the relationship as it is now. They all showed a real aptitude for the essentials of storytelling, and the spaces drew the audience into the intimacy of the situation, particularly in Futurophobia, where the characters sat in the centre of the room hugging each other discussing various phobias.

In other pieces the audience were left alone with a single character, and these were some of the more effective pieces for bringing the audience into a world that sits halfway between the recognisable and the unreal. Blades by Bethan Marlowe and directed by Sera Moore-Williams had a particularly strong grasp of using audience interaction as a reflection of its character, with the audience led down dark blue tinted walls by a teenager of obvious mental and emotional distress: he tells them not to touch the walls and to walk one foot in front of the other, as otherwise his mother will die, and then his brother, and then his father, producing a real sense of restriction and anxiety. Water Torture, written by Tom Wentworth and directed by Yvonne Murphy, was another piece that brought the audience into a dark, strange world, cramping them in a toilet, where a foot ominously stuck out from under the shower curtain. The writing really shone in particular, as the character spoke about his lover’s hatred of a dripping tap, and there was an intensity in the language and the piece that resonated with the conflict in the relationship he was describing.

Lynn Hunter tries to sell the audience pieces from her past in James Rourke's Everything Must Go, directed by Lisa Turner.

Whilst some of the pieces felt like they were stories that could have been told in any space - by no means a criticism – Space, written by Ralph Bolland and directed by Simon Harris, and Gareth’s New Play, written by Gareth Potter and directed by Matt Ball, both felt strongly connected to the space that they had been created in. The former enclosed us in a dark room with an increasingly claustrophobic audience member, and was a nice departure point as it allowed the audience to simply enjoy the absurdity of the situation, and be with the character in the moment. The latter placed the audience in a dark room, forcing them to look up at a Schizophrenic man who stood directly above on a wooden platform ledge, and the strain of maintaining attention was oddly suited to such a cramped and disorientating atmosphere. These two pieces exemplified an interesting tension that the production brings up, as the murmur of ‘I didn’t understand that one’ or ‘What was the point of the last one?’ could occasionally be heard: should theatre primarily be experiential or about understanding the content of the work?

Meilir Rhys Williams brings us into his ominous world of costume heads in Sharon Clark's untitled piece, directed by Anna Poole.

Notwithstanding, there were moments in each of the journeys that didn’t quite work. The pieces outside the theatre suffered from a lack of intimacy in comparison to the others, as they were something that didn’t quite connect between space and content in this instance. The untitled piece written by Lisa Perry and directed by Simon Harris was set in a long windowed hallway with the audience watching from outside the building, and although the space was used to give a real sense of the barrier between us and our inability to help the woman being emotionally and potentially physically abused inside the corridor, it felt somewhat like a negation of the dialogue, and in such a space there needed to be a higher degree of visual communication between the audience and the actors. Another piece that could also have benefitted from considering how it communicates with the audience was the Welsh language piece Er Ei Losgi, written by Dyfed Edwards and directed by Beca Lewis Jones, as it felt as if more attention should have been given to how the piece works for those who do not understand the language, though it was a real pleasure to see a piece in Welsh included in the tour.

Pushing for experimentation, Swingers will always have aspects that are rough around the edges but these are easily forgiven for and outweighed by the potential and talent that the show buzzes with. There is a real bravery and risk in the production that absolutely should be applauded, especially at a time when the success of theatre is increasingly measured in economic terms in place of artistic achievement. Sherman Swingers certainly proves that restrictions produce outstanding and exciting pieces of work, and, most of all, points towards an exciting time for new theatre work in Wales.