It was during a production called The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other at the National’s Lyttleton Theatre that Tiffany Tondut got to know actress Zoë Wanamaker. How ironic! During that time 'Tiffy' and 'Wanny' shared shocks, tears and riotous laughter together as they watched Peter Handke’s unusual piece of physical theatre. They are now BFFs.

I’m watching a man slowly die from a terrible fit while a couple hump each other up an alleyway. I snigger quietly as Zoë hacks out her successful actress laugh. We're in the staid 70’s interior of the National’s Lyttelton Theatre. There are many confounding aspects to Peter Handke’s play, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, the first being that it’s not actually an hour – it’s an hour and a half. I’m baffled as to why an extra half hour of surplus material was needed (Ed - The Ninety Minutes We Knew Nothing of Each Other actually sounds better too)

Fifteen years ago Handke sat in a town square in Triest and watched people. This production is a recreation of those observations with 27 actors playing a total of 450 characters. Handke explains: "The hustle and bustle, the milling of tourists… none of the people knew anything of each other – hence the title."

He even manipulates time and space. Moses makes a good cameo and Peer Gynt (a character from an Ibsen play who gets drunk a lot and has sex with trolls) peels onions next to a pot-smoking chav.

The curtain drops and Zoe enthuses about the more compelling moments:

ZOE: "That was cool! What parts were we laughing hysterically at?"
DP: "When the couple had sex after watching the sociopath die."
ZOE: "God yeah! And the girl-on-girl mugging. She clobbered her with her own handbag!  I was a bit unsure about he ending though."

(Referring to the planted actors who stood up from among the audience and made their way to the stage for the finale.)

ZOE: "If you’re going to do that sort of thing, you should really encourage the whole audience to go up on stage by planting more actors."
DP: "Really? I thought it worked well."
ZOE: "I heard you go ‘ooooh’."
DP: "I wanted to get up and join them on stage. Have you never wanted to do that?"
ZOE: "Er… no. Never had the desire."
DP: "But you could do it. You could have done it tonight and nobody would have blinked an eye. Cos you're Zoë Wanamaker."
ZOE: "Gosh yes… so I could."
DP: "Why do you think we don’t do things like that? What stops us?"
ZOE: "I guess because… we’re afraid of making fools of ourselves. We don’t trust ourselves or what other people would think if we did. I think we’re afraid to do something out of the ordinary."

You can see The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other from 6 Feb
Bookings: 020 7452 3000 or go to nationaltheatre.org.uk