Following a critically acclaimed sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, EIF award winners, Belt Up Theatre bring their nightmarish and disorientating vision of Kafka’s classic to the Southwark Playhouse.

A haunting theatrical incarnation lifts Kafka’s words from the page and inhabits them in the labyrinthine world under London Bridge.

It’s half past eight and Josef K normally has his breakfast at half past eight. Yet today his world is twisted and deformed when he is arrested and dragged into the uncertain purgatory of the justice system. In a warped wonderland, K must make his way through this tentative world seeking help amongst a sinisterly peculiar freak show of characters. From the spider-like helping hand of Huld to the giddily incomprehensible Titorelli, K must attempt to weave a narrative through his vague destiny. Easier said than done in a world of absolute order without logic, punishment without crime, people without humanity.

An unsettling and disorientating journey through the eccentric, macabre and truly petrifying world of Kafka’s novella, this production will leave you troubled by the lingering images that you catch glances of amongst this fast, furious and frightening representation of the red-tape nightmare.

Set to an original score of blues piano and drum and bass, The Trial will plunge you into a claustrophobic atmosphere and leave you at its mercy as Josef K hurtles towards his inexplicable fate.

Belt Up Theatre, an emerging company from the north of England, have enjoyed a vast amount of success over the past few years including winning the Edinburgh International Festival award 2008. This adaptation of The Trial premiered this summer as part of Belt Up’s Edinburgh season in ‘The Squat’ – a custom built immersive environment – alongside its sister show, The Tartuffe. Over the past two years, Belt Up have clocked up no less than 14 individual immersive productions ranging from epic clown pieces to multi-time, multi-space performances of Shakespeare.