Levels of entrapment: personal, political and contextual, are thrown into play in this topical, entertaining comedy by Joel Joan and Hèctor Claramunt. A group of four ‘friends’ try out an Escape Room; a game where you’re locked in a space and have an hour to get out of it by solving a series of complicated puzzles. 

In this creepy setting – like a grimy laboratory, a military hospital, or an art installation by Joseph Beuys – the claustrophobia mounts, internally and externally. Two pairs of couples try to figure out the room, alternately siding and competing with each other; renegotiating their relationships, redefining their divisions… Tellingly, in this puzzle of establishing one’s own position and identity, the rules keep changing. 

While the black humour crosses the lines of taste sometimes, the Nazi context indicates the level to which language too becomes an issue – or appears to. The extreme vocabulary used in local and global contexts these days gives the appearance of fractured, rigid politics adhered to by mass groups. These, in fact, probably don’t exist beyond Twitter. 

What wins out in the end in Escape Room is a reassuring sense of individuality, inclusivity and community. The sell-out show returns at the end of this year; anyone who still thinks of themselves as an outsider in Barcelona, should escape from their niche mind and go and see it.