OF all the blockbuster Tim Rice musicals, why would 24-year-old Callum O'Connell choose to make his directorial debut with Chess?

What does it have the others don't? High-octane action? You gotta be kidding! It's about two guys playing chess! Accessibility? Forget about it! It's two-and-a-half hours of Cold War politics and recitative operatics! Eye-popping dance routines? Not unless King's Knight to Queen Four is your idea of innovative choreography! So, why, Callum? Why Chess?

Ultimately a director takes on Chess for the same reason one plays it: for the challenge. Set at the height of the Cold War, the musical deals with a USA versus USSR grandmaster grudge match. There is almost no dialogue, and on the whole it is characterised by an angry, heavily cerebral tone which rarely lets up. Tim Rice described it as one of the hardest things he ever worked on. And you know what? Despite all that, Shipton's Chess was brilliant.

The monochrome set provides a bold and striking aesthetic for the cast to work within, and the opening set piece, featuring the chorus hidden behind white masks, is a powerful, uncompromising statement of intent.

The current political climate adds weight to the theme of conflict between East and West which the play has probably lacked for ten years; American master Freddie is violent, arrogant, prone to thoughtless knee-jerk reactions, every bit the cowboy neo-conservative.

O'Connell's use of the large projection screen is highly imaginative, the moving footage being simply great video art in its own right. John Hall's Alexander Molokov is superb, a wire-tapping KGB ogre in an expensive suit, while Juliet Waters' performance as Florence Vassey is stunning.

Special praise must go to the band, which deals with the shifting musical score - disco, rock, jazz - excellently. Where the songs are good, they're very good; Abba's Benny and Bjorn wrote the music, and I Know Him So Well is a stone cold Broadway classic. This is a serious piece of musical theatre, and it has taken a lot of guts to tackle it on its own terms. Checkmate.

Updated: 10:24 Thursday, March 10, 2005