Several decades ago in a previous existence, gentle reader, I was gainfully employed as an officer of Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise. Early on in my career there, I was required to attend a week-long Induction Course at a London Headquarters building. It was one of the most miserable weeks of my life. Incredibly stressful, totally humiliating, but moreover completely designed to be both those two things and we all knew it. The story was that they had moved the course from another office because one participant had attempted to throw themselves off the roof, so they relocated it to a non-skyscraper building. Whether that’s apocryphal or not, I don’t know – but I have no reason to disbelieve it. Not long after I’d survived that week, the powers that be decided to stop running the course. How very wise.

So that horrendous experience was the first thing that came into my head as I watched the opening moments of The Grönholm Method. Four people are shown into a smart office waiting room, expecting a final-stage interview for some great city management role. But there’s no interviewer? And the four of them are left to battle it out for themselves, following instructions that magically appear in a secret drawer that opens out of the wall every so often. Wiser reviewers than me have pointed out the similarity to Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter and I get their drift – instructions that come into a closed unit from an invisible hand outside. I was also reminded of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, as the numbers in the room slowly go down, whilst a hidden presence from without reveals the secrets of members of the group. And, of course, there’s a large element of TV’s Big Brother here, with the unseen boss giving individual members of the group secret tasks that they have to achieve in order to win preference in future rounds.

But you shouldn’t waste your time trying to read any particular meaning into this play. Yes, it has some amusing and insightful observations into office life, but that aside, it’s purely for fun. Catalan playwright Jordi Galceran has written 90 minutes of tricks and teases, leading the audience up one garden path then down another, playing mindgames not only on the audience but also on the characters too. It’s not over till the fat lady sings, and the last couple of minutes contains two plot voltes-face, that you can choose to believe, or not. This is a play that has no definite rights and wrongs.

Although it may be purely for fun, there’s no disguising that it’s actually a thoroughly nasty play. Characters are required to go through hoops that expose them and demean themselves in a way that you wouldn’t possibly accept if you were going for a job interview. Any company that hauled you in through the Grönholm Method (this method of applicant selection doesn’t exist by the way and is purely a fiendish invention of Mr Galceran) is a company that you would not want to work for. There’s a reasonably lengthy sequence about halfway through the play that can only be described as transphobic. It made me feel very uncomfortable and certainly unwilling to laugh at anything in that sequence. The play was originally written in 2003, when attitudes to such topics were probably less enlightened than they are today, and from that point of view it’s not an inaccurate portrayal of the perception of trans people in the workplace; but it’s thoroughly unpleasant and outdated to today’s audience. There’s another sequence towards the end when two candidates are each given secret tasks, and the interview ends either when one of them achieves their task, or the other guesses what the other’s task is. Much personal harassment and heartache ensues. However, they left the two task instructions in envelopes on the table. Don’t know about you, but I would simply have opened my opponent’s envelope and read their task. Simples.

B T McNicholl directs at a slick pace, bringing out all the antagonism and cynicism of modern office life, and emphasising the sacrifices that people must make if they’re to get on in business. It’s set in New York, but in reality it could be set anywhere in the world where ambitious city types are willing to tread on and be trodden on in order to get places. When you arrive in the auditorium before it starts, you’re made to look at a featureless black screen that separates you from the stage and it’s surprising how disturbing it feels – almost as though we the audience are imprisoned too. When it finally opens out to reveal Tim Hatley’s set, it’s as crisply efficient and ruthlessly sterile as the business firm it depicts.

The cast of four work superbly together – and indeed it is brilliant casting. Jonathan Cake truly excels as the dislikeable Frank Porter, the hard-nosed Pharma executive who reckons he knows it all and is just there to sniff out the money and to hell with everything and everyone else. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly so it’s perfect for him to be up against John Gordon Sinclair’s Rick Foster for the first part of the play, another deftly fantastic performance with brilliant comic timing. Mr Sinclair plays Rick like he just about has a reasonable grasp on the basics of life but is woefully absent on any detail; it’s a really funny performance.

It’s unusual to see Laura Pitt-Pulford in a non-musical role but here she is scheming with the best of them as Melanie Douglas, contending with personal crises whilst refusing to back down in the selection procedure and switching personality (all becomes clear when you see the show) with effortless effectiveness and hilarious ease. Greg McHugh makes up the foursome as the genial Carl Gardner, who may or may not have any number of secrets up his sleeve, and whose principled stance sets him at odds against the Big Recruitment Plan.

Endlessly surprising and impossible to second-guess, this is a fast and funny production that’s full of entertainment, despite a few sticky moments in the script. It’s almost at the end of its run now, but if you’re quick you could get tickets. Very enjoyable!