proceedings. But there is a biting political wit at the heart of things, which we are left to consider at will. This is unsurprising. Shaban's work as an actor, writer and artist seldom fails to address the questions which some of us would prefer to go unasked.

The striking issue of body fascism is one such question. Dealing with ingrained prejudice is what shapes - at least in part - Max's everyday existence. From work colleagues and the local police force, to the prostitutes who populate his nightly quests for sexual fulfilment, Max faces an all-seeing world in which humanity is only skin deep.

This is not the first time a character must counter the effects of body fascism in Shaban's writing. In his 1996 play, The First To Go (published in 2007 by Sirius Book Works), Shaban uncovers the chilling details of the Nazi Party's eugenics policy, which saw sterilisation, and later

extermination, become state-sanctioned tools against the disabled citizens of Nazi Germany.

When I first read The First To Go I was taken aback by the depth of the tragedy which unfolds amongst a small circle of institutionalised disabled friends, who must face the full force of the Nazis' twisted doctrine of 'good genes'. This fallen science is portrayed as a brave new world by its soft-minded practitioners, who commence with a scheme which becomes nothing short of a disabled holocaust.

In unpacking the horrors contained within this ethically barren reality there is revealed a single word which possesses devastating compass. The term 'biocracy', referred to in the opening scene of the play, turns out to have at least two connotations. In the first case it refers to a wider circle of concern involving both human and non-human beings (see Michael W. Stowell's Biocracy at www.swans.com).

Idealistic, perhaps, but no less worthy an ambition. For Shaban, however, the word has an altogether darker meaning. A biocracy is a state built