I Am Thomas, Wilton's Music Hall

After the runaway success of last year's Hangmen, gallows humour takes centre stage again in I Am Thomas. The comedy follows Thomas Aikenhead, the last person in Britain to be executed for blasphemy. Not the most appealing of subjects for a play? Perhaps. But with show stopping songs, penned by award-winning poet Simon Armitage, I am Thomas is set to find the comedy in capital punishment.

I Am Thomas has been produced by Told by an Idiot in collaboration with The Lyceum Edinburgh and The National Theatre of Scotland. It’s being marketed as a ‘brutal comedy with songs’, which is a helpful introduction to the theatre company’s alternative approach to staging. Carol Ann Duffy called them the ‘most exciting, enthralling and energizing presence in British Theatre’.

In the experienced hands of director Paul Hunter (My Perfect Mind) and composer Iain Johnstone, it will undoubtedly be an assured as well as unique production.

It’s not all whacky theatre. Although it’s set in the 17^th century, the play time travels through Scottish history to explore a hot current issue: free speech. ‘Je Suis Charlie’ – the movement that followed the Paris terrorist attacks on satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo – is echoed not only in the play’s title but also its content. Expect diverse references, from the Passion of the Christ to the 1974 Football World Cup.

The production’s travelling around the UK and has already played the Liverpool Playhouse and the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. It’s coming to the charming and intimate setting of Wilton’s Music Hall on 21 April.

It’s picking up rave reviews; the Scotsman says it is 'beautifully sung' and that the 'mighty ballads carry the weight, sadness, anger and beauty of Aikenhead's story'. The Guardian and the Financial Times gave the play four stars, and it's only running for ten days so book your tickets soon.