Every so often, a piece of theatre comes along that really challenges the way in which we view our world. In Click, youth theatre company Mess up the Mess have delivered just that. In their thorough interrogation of how we form relationships both virtually and offline, they urge us to think deeply about how we interact and how we find a sense of real experience.

Click begins as the young cast gradually enter the stage. A boy plays video games while one girl fusses with her hair and another reads. Each performer functions within their own bubble, miming out their slightly mobile snapshot of youth in apparent isolation. Yes the initial representations of youth culture are simplistic, but this mode of portrayal doesn’t last long; from a teen reclining leisurely on a beanbag comes the claim that ‘everyone’s an island’ and so we are introduced a clever repackaging of the concerns of John Donne, complicated by the digital age.

Click is an energetic work which sees the ideas of four diverse groups of young people captured in a script by Dafydd James. As part of a globally connected scheme, this piece will ultimately be performed in Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand as well as in this tour through Wales, with appropriate tweaks to tailor the work to its hosting country. The impact of these parallel presentations is powerful. One gets the sense that this production is alive. Not only does the piece crackle with an electric energy which makes you long to check whether its fictional viral videos are actually on YouTube, it also gives us the fully-involving and uniting sense of the same questions being asked across the globe.

Although strung together by the compelling narrative from an established Welsh scriptwriter, the piece maintains the fresh and rapid feel of a sketch show and is entirely plugged into youth issues. Thus, frustration features strongly as a theme. Boredom, too. Yet this piece is far from tedious in its attempts to fashion a new etiquette in multiple spheres at once.

Click navigates the difficulty of representing the emotional impact of relationships built entirely through digital interactions. The characters mime out the sensations that accompany their banal-sounding Facebook updates and the production is coloured by the noises of our online interactions as the cheery Skype ringtone and repetitive beeps, clicks and typing noises are layered onto the performance.

As we all sit at our keyboards we may be islands, but through online networks and interactions we can cross the seas in communication. Rich in challenging thoughts and exclamations and maintaining an excitable pace throughout, Click truly captures the excitement and tempo of the digital age.