Opening with a series of interwoven scenes, switching between more than fifty shades of grey to a glorious Technicolor, we meet Rachel McLinn's Danielle, a budding, monochrome interior designer and Cat Stobbs's rainbow-like party animal Kate, filling her time with any frivolity that will add colour to her life.
Danielle troubles herself with how she came to be trying her key in the wrong front door whilst Kate explains how she comes to be arrested stone cold sober in a shopping trolley in Stanley Street.
Maybe she just needs to get the bruises to prove she's had a night out at all... Or at least FELT something.
What comes across most of all in this production is the tremendous voice that Laura Kate Barrow has and the great choice of acting and creative team who have brought it vividly to life.
Under Sarah Van Parys's delicately un-studied direction, Rachel McLinn and Cat Stobbs give real and compelling performances that genuinely do make us think about our own motivation and priorities in life. After the unashamedly transparent comedy of the first part of the play, everything becomes more introspective, dark and telling. It is with some astonishment that we find ourselves drawn almost to tears by Kate's savvy admissions of social failure and Danielle's earnest attempts to understand.
I was given to wondering whether the series of animated projections to the rear of Alex Herring's set added to the production or confused it, but the simplicity of the tripartite design worked really well overall.
Writing like this is hard to come by. Trolley Shaped Bruise has one more performance at Unity 2 tomorrow, 22nd May 2013, and every seat deserves to be filled.
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