Sleepwalkers takes place simultaneously in Berlin before the outbreak of World War II and in a sinister post-Brexit Britain which has reached warzone conditions. At the heart of this play, which marks Think Twice Theatre’s Fringe debut, are the effects and dangers of populist politics. Three double-cast actors, two girls and a boy, seamlessly slip between the time frames – sometimes scenes overlap, with a character from 2020 speaking to someone from 1929.

In Berlin, 1929, Martha and her younger sister Greta are trying to keep the family shop open. Moritz, their hired live-in helper, is in love with Greta and wants to take her away to Paris away from the tensions and riots and ‘brownshirts’. With the frustration among the German population growing, World War II fast approaches. In middle England, 2020, Amy Kowalski, a stubborn businesswoman from an immigrant family, is trying to keep her family business, a cash-and-carry, afloat while constantly called upon to help her friend x and his employee Jade out with x’s cafe. Since the major political disasters of the 2010s, Britain has turned into a divided society – globalised elites at the top and struggling, disenfranchised, working-class locals at the bottom. Both the Germans and the Brits in this play experience the rise of populism – in a way that is all too close to home, it is implied that what happened in Europe in the 1930s is about to happen to us again.

Through use of excellent sound-effects, a variety of physical theatre and dance sequences and strictly choreographed scene changes, the cast successfully convey the atmosphere of each scene. The use of language has been well-thought out – the more stilted, contraction-lacking speech used during the Berlin sequences has both a German sound and an old-fashioned-ness, differentiating it from the familiar modern speech used for the parts set in 2020.

This production’s message is a bit too obvious – we are sleepwalking towards our own doom, and it has happened before. However, just because a message is obvious does not mean it should not be heard. This impressive three-hander is fascinating to watch and puts a creative spin on a political plot we should already know.

Sleepwalkers is playing theSpace on the Mile until August 26.