But while this is a play about the real world of politics – a point emphasised by Tom Scutt's design of a bleak council chamber – John Tiffany's production has an extraordinary free-floating quality: between scenes, and sometimes within them, the actors practise balancing on invisible tightropes.
The future looks bleak for Chambers.
Setting those bleak sales figures aside, Mr. Chambers focused on recent sales trends to support his hopes for better results ahead.
There are others, conflicting and combining: stomping rock, meticulous chamber music, Celtic modes, improvisational noise, bleak cynicism, pervasive paranoia and glimpses of kindliness.
She has an almost superstitious fear of the Puffin paperback selection of Grimms' tales on her bookshelf, although some details from those tales — with their superb, bleak cruelty — are stored away in a dark chamber in her imagination, for later.
In the bleak years of the Depression, his father and three friends would play chamber music at the house every weekend.
And the Scottish Chambers of Commerce last week published its Business Survey which painted a bleak economic picture.
"Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door – Only this, and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Luke Shaw was also heading to Manchester United, and when Dejan Lovren and Calum Chambers completed permanent moves away from the club, the situation at St Mary's looked bleak at best.
