Precipice review – horror on the Thames in a baffling musical dystopia

New Diorama, London
Two stories, centuries apart, are used to chart climate disaster in this ambitious musical with bitty scenes and cumbersome lyrics

This climate disaster musical takes place in a tower block overlooking the Thames. The setting is central because the dystopia has been caused by a biomedical waste dump in the river. London is flooded and this flat on the 16th floor is the safest place to live.

Or so it seems, because things are very opaque in this experimental production. Devised by director Adam Lenson, Stu Barter, Rachel Bellman, Annabelle Lee Revak, Darren Clark and Shaye Poulton Richards, it brings an electro-folk sound to bitty storylines in two timezones. There are the tower block survivors – it is unclear which century they are living in until close to the end when they mention the year 2425 – and a second storyline in the past which might be the 1990s (there is talk of DVDs) in which a couple moves into a luxury high-rise overlooking the Thames (the same 16th-floor flat?).