An impending German attack provides the time frame to clearly guide the plot, but the play is much more about the exploration of motives and characters rather than actions. It’s a rather long, pondering and episodic tale, but I would argue that this is intentional to create an understanding of the waiting game that must have played out in those trenches. And to “get” the piece the audience simply has to play along with the characters. For the better part of three hours we see the soldiers waiting for their next meal, waiting to go home, waiting to become a man, waiting to win the war, waiting for the next German attack, waiting for death and waiting for ways to try and cope with all of this.

Every friendship found on the front lines could be ended any moment by shrapnel from the other side. David Aldwyn as Stanhope gives a high octane performance that pretty much stays in the same register of anger or despair throughout. A man constantly on edge and afraid to form bonds with the men around him, he resorts to alcohol to drown out the terrors of war. Fairly early on he and the illness-faking Hibbert (convincingly played by Adam Fletcher) have an emotional breakdown about how they are both trapped between the duty to serve their country and the desperate desire to get out of the hell of war. What is playing out in front of our eyes is the complete failure of “stiff upper lip” as a coping strategy for human misery.

Liam Smith plays “Uncle” Osborne, a former school master who has ended up in the rabbithole-like madness of the World War I trenches and who, amongst all of the chaos and squalor, remains calm and serene. For me, his performance alone makes the show worth watching. In small gestures and seemingly throwaway anecdotes, the director and Smith have found the essence of what the piece seems to be about. When he and young Raleigh share a quiet moment in the officer’s quarters, it’s sad and touching without resorting to overbearing melodrama. When Osborne talks to him about gardening while the German grenades are about to explode around them, Matthew Pattimore as the naïve soldier Raleigh looks beautifully out of place – the mundane mixed into the state of expectation.

While some choose memories of their pre-war lives to keep sane, others resort to rather more tangible survival strategies. Steven George as Trotter has great comic timing while having to juggle all of the food his character is obsessed with. Only James Hender’s Colonel remains a slightly uninvolving stage presence. The set by Kemey Lafond is suitingly drab and gray, but some of the uniforms and boots could have done with a bit more mud for the sake of authenticity.

Touching upon so many issues relating to war, be it hero worship, duty or friendship, the play is by no means an easy watch, nor does it set out to be. But with such an oppressive piece everything could have been just a tad more involving and a bit more attention could have been paid to details that create atmosphere or establish characters. Some of the sound, light and other effects also felt like they were added on without necessarily supporting the story. On press night parts of the piece felt slightly underrehearsed, but no doubt the run will see much smoother performances; on the whole, the actors are doing a fabulous job portraying these tragic characters trapped in the trenches of a senseless war.

For many people, especially in America, RENT is not simply a piece of light evening entertainment. It is a cult show that epitomised the struggles and confusions of a generation that tried to claim free love for themselves and consequently got hit by a wave of disease of unimaginable proportions. Loosely based on Puccini’s La Bohème and dealing with the AIDS/HIV problem it had a huge impact when it came to Broadway in 1996. RENT’s world is gritty and yet life-affirming in spite of disease. Without being overly sentimental or pretentious, it deals with characters that try to make sense of their relationships and careers in the little time they have got left.

This seems to be a high season for fans of RENT or “Rentheads”, as they call themselves: Anthony Rapp (who played Mark Cohen in the original Broadway production) is currently in town doing his one man show Without You at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the current New York Off-Broadway show had its last run only a couple of days ago, and now there is Paul Taylor Mills’ slick interpretation of this modern classic.

What he offers is not original or new but it is highly enjoyable, and Jonathan Larson’s music and story take care of the rest. Mark (Benjamin Stratton), the filmmaker, and his flatmate Roger (Edward Handoll) don’t have enough money to pay their rent and are threatened to be evicted by their former friend and now landlord Benjamin (David Hinton-Gale). There are drugs, sex, guitars and plenty of existential questions to be dealt with. As an artist, how do you prevent yourself from being a sell-out when you can’t pay the bills? Can you find true love when confronted by a numbing disease? And what can offer comfort in a life that seems hopeless?

This version is a bit relentless, and some of the big questions in Larson’s piece don’t get a lot of breathing space to be explored. But in the quieter numbers like “Will I?” we are allowed to sink a bit deeper into the desolation of the characters, and that’s the big strength of the original material. Among all of the outrageous and obscene moments that lend the show its roughness, it is the tenderness and sincerity that make RENT such an unforgettable experience.

The vocal performances of the cast are convincing and strong across the board. One of the stars s Zoe Birkett who, while vocally impressive and with impeccable comedy timing during the number Over The Moon, tries a bit too hard in her characterisation of the over-sexualised performance artist Maureen. It’s probably not the easiest thing to be effortlessly sexy and in with the audience at the same time. Gary Wood plays the feisty drag queen Angel as fierce and touching at the same time and Stephanie Fearon’s Mimi shines especially in quiet numbers like “Without You”.

But the one who really stands out is Jamie Birkett, who plays the lesbian lawyer Joanne as a strong no-nonsense power woman and who can speak volumes with merely the lift of an eyebrow.

Andrew Beckett’s costumes and David Shield’s set, an effective scaffolding structure dominating the stage, are both very reminiscent of the original Broadway version. If you have never seen RENT live before this is definitely the show for you. If however you have already seen your “favourite” version of the show all of this might be a bit too polished. And certainly for my taste it was all just a tad too shiny – that applies to some of the musical arrangements as well as the direction both of which seem to loose a bit of their focus towards the end at “What You Own”.

But this is just picking holes into what is overall a well-presented and round show with a very strong ensemble and generally believable main characters. Definitely watch out for Maeve Byrne and her excellent solo part in “Seasons of Love”.

Proving its enduring popularity, later this year Interval Productions will bring an amateur-licensed version of the show to The Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone, and it will be interesting to see how both productions will compare to each other.