‘Welcome to the most controversial programme in the world!’ This is how the spectator is greeted at this evening of TV-on-stage, and this is how the suicide show, ‘The Art of Entertainment’, hopes finally to reach more than 110 million viewers. Sylvie Rohrer (the second actor the Burgtheater made available for this production, alongside Michael König in the role of the eminent suicide Saul J. Waner) shows off a set of false blonde underarm hair, which can be read as an example of the game of authenticity that is being played here: it is an illusion that everyone sees straight through and at the same time it suggests that it’s all not as bad as it seems. Many who have seen previous Needcompany plays will immediately think ‘Ah, so it’s a satire on the media, is it?’ The programme also contains a lot of well-founded information on ‘the tragedy of the applause’, the ‘perfect media representation of terror’, as well as ‘postmodernist mythology’. The question is, does this exceptional Flemish team have anything new to tell us on this topic? An evening with Needcompany is like visiting an incredible family where everyone looks marvellous, has so much talent and, to cap it all, is likeable too… initially you are a little jealous, but in the end you are grateful, thinking ‘it’s great that they exist!’ To this extent, it may be that the right answer to the question – certainly not entirely rhetorical – that Saul J. Waner puts halfway through the play, of whether anyone has any idea of what they are doing, is: ‘No, none at all – but what does it matter?’ Throughout this evening of theatre, packed full with superbly caricatured grand gestures, the pathos of authenticity is in any case undermined by all sorts of charming nonsense on the fringes of the acting area; the nimbly choreographed slow-motion slapstick wins out over tragedy, and the whirling dented wok manages to get more done than the aspiring suicide. This may not have been entirely intended, but this production demonstrates very convincingly what The Art of Entertainment is all about.