Mnemonic review – Complicité’s brainteaser goes back to the future

Olivier theatre, London
Simon McBurney returns to direct his 1999 drama and it still fizzes, even if some of the images are more rewarding than the ideas

Remembering is not a neutral function but an imaginative act, Khalid Abdalla tells us in a lecture-style preamble. He might be speaking about the nature of this revival itself.

Originally conceived by Simon McBurney in 1999 and revered as one of Complicité theatre company’s greatest hits, Mnemonic is not replicated but reimagined by an 11-strong company of actors. McBurney again directs, this time with Abdalla as the lead, charismatic and hitting all the beats of his many parts. These include a charmingly scattered “memory DJ”; a bereft man whose partner, Alice (Eileen Walsh, excellent as always), goes missing while searching for her father; and a corpse discovered under ice which, it turns out, has been preserved for more than 5,000 years.