But, while it makes a tough, gripping spectacle in Matthew Dunster's exciting production, it also occasionally stretches the bounds of probability.
The business of vigilante justice makes for an unedifying (albeit gripping) spectacle; the techniques involved, if they skirt the legal definition of entrapment, are certainly morally suspect.
The participants were actually contestants, adjusting their behavior to stay in the game and win the prize -- which helped inform "Survivor's" gripping spectacle of scheming and manipulation.
This first gig since Wormwood Scrubs includes all the other reasons the fans remain; the whiff of dangerous unpredictability mixes headily with genuine talent, making for a gripping spectacle.
England's management team has learned a fair amount from the two Tests in Bangladesh, which provided a gripping spectacle way beyond our expectation, but this does not include the identity of the 11 players that constitute their best team on the subcontinent.
A gripping spectacle was decided 12 minutes from time when City captain Vincent Kompany - an injury doubt before the game and clearly lacking some of his familiar authority - sliced a clearance straight to Philippe Coutinho, who shot low and unerringly past Joe Hart to put Liverpool in control of the title race.
It makes for a gripping 55-minute spectacle in which Soutra Gilmour's design, a mixture of bear pit and boxing ring, turns us into voyeuristic accomplices.
There is a gripping English wildlife spectacle, coming to an end just about now, which involves thousands of individual creatures in scenes of mass birth, mass sex and violent death; the only difference is one of scale.
With the game ebbing and flowing more evenly than at any other point the spectacle was gripping, both teams aware that one slip would consign them to the Europa League.
For much of this week, Britain has been gripped by the spectacle of a brutal, behind-the-scenes power struggle between the men over the timing of Mr. Blair's departure.
