July 1, 1934, Berlin. The morning after the night before. The night before being a cocaine-fuelled attempt at an orgy which only lured in one drunken SA soldier.

Unfortunately for promiscuous Max (Peter Hynds) and live-in lover Rudy (Jake Lennox) the beautiful blonde Brownshirt they brought home happens to have an arrest warrant out over his name, and the murderous Night of the Long Knives is about to catch up with him.

When the SS come a-knocking, their flat (rented on borrowed time as it is) suddenly becomes the scene of an execution and Max and Rudy are forced on the run.

It sort of makes the current Durex adverts warning of bringing home a date with chlamydia look trivial.

In 1979 Martin Sherman’s play Bent broke new ground, and prompted a wealth of research into Nazi persecution of homosexuals in the lead up to and during the Second World War.

On Saturday night that world was brought to life by TS Theatre’s production of the late 70s play when they transformed The Platform into those early decadent days of the Cabaret city before plunging the audience into a life on the run, and ultimately the monotony and desperation of the Nazi death camps.

Hynds’ Max (a role first played by the great Sir Ian McKellan) is a smooth talker who uses whatever currency he has at his disposal to secure the deal he needs - be that a yellow Jewish star to place him (marginally) further up the hierarchy within the camp, or the life-saving medicine for gay pink triangle-wearing prisoner Horst (James Tutt).

The pair’s attempt at a sexual relationship right before their captor’s noses is imaginative and almost as surprising as the opening scene which sees the naked Wolf (Scott McDonald) stride across the stage - a role that required real balls to do.

Tutt clearly took his role as gay nurse Horst seriously by allowing his own hair to be shaved off while in costume ahead of this one-night-only production that proves itself to be as relevant today as it has ever been. - Stephen Davy-Osborne