Robert Lepage delves into themes of addiction, disorientation and the creative drive by astounding audiences with magnificent technical wizardry in Needles And Opium, a multi-layered tale of heartbreak at the Barbican Theatre.

Based around the lives of Jean Cocteau and Miles Davis in 1949, an ingeniously tilting cube illuminates the stage to present a hypnotic series of vignettes. These play out the respective stories of French writer and filmmaker Cocteau, returning from New York full of wonder and disenchantment, and American musician Davis, who tours Paris and brings his unique brand of bebop to the old continent, accumulating a myriad of fans in the process.

But 40 years later, a lonely actor tries to forgo recollections of his former lover, and is tormented by echoes of the dependency that both artists had on substances.

Presented via the cube, the three characters float and slide through time and space, from a Parisian hotel room to New York streets, to a backdrop of filmic projections and jazz, attaining Lepage’s trademark blend of seductive storytelling and visual transformation.

Suitable for ages 14+.