Was it good? I don’t know. Was it effective? Certainly, and it was also the first play I have ever attended which specifically precluded under-18s from attending. “This makes me feel as if I’m in that film The Truman Show”, said the person next to me in the audience.

Ah, the audience. A full house at the North Wall was vital for both The Author and the author of the play (Tim Crouch, who also performed). The space was laid out in banks of seats facing each other, as in the House of Commons. We behaved as a normal audience would as the lights stayed up.

And then someone spoke, loudly. The four actors were seated, spread randomly among us. Who might be next? Long pause. Then another, a row ahead of me and three seats away, began to talk. There was already a marked edginess, and we were only a few minutes in; you felt strongly that you could derail proceedings at any time by speaking out yourself. Maybe that’s exactly what Tim Crouch aims for at every performance.

But such interruptions would have broken the flow of performances from the actors which belied the pretensions of the piece. Crouch, Chris Goode, Vic Llewelyn and Esther Smith between them told a tale of writing, performing and watching a shocking play. One choice word, repeated a number of times, and a couple of pieces of specific imagery were what led to that 18+ warning.

As we ordinary human beings faced each other across the auditorium, I think the author wanted us to reach within ourselves, and then and recoil from what ordinary human beings are sometimes capable of.

The Author premiered last year at the Royal Court, famed for encouraging new writing. The play’s opening words are “I love this. This is great, isn’t it?” Well, no — it was frankly trying over hard to be clever and provocative. But I shall stick with the word ‘effective’.