It is the eve of the new millennium and ancient clown, Scaramouche Jones, leaves the circus ring for the final time.

Slumped in his dressing room, he knows that death is finally waiting. But first he has a story to tell.

As he reflects on an extraordinary life - a life that has spanned the entirety of the 20th century - this son of a Trinidadian gypsy whore reveals a tale so strange, that even he is amazed by its curious and often awful symmetry.

This one man play was a critical sensation when Pete Postlethwaite took on the role. Now the man who wrote it - Justin Butcher - revives his compelling masterpiece for a tour of small theatres.

The result is a triumph of physical performance, stagecraft and a movingly poetic meditation on a century that will be remembered for its brutality, displaced nations and lost souls.

The story finds Scaramouche snatched from his murdered mother as a child, enslaved by an exotic snake charmer and set on a journey that takes him first to Africa and then through a Europe torn apart by political upheaval and war.

Bought, sold, beaten and abused, he finally finds his true vocation, playing the clown, as he digs mass graves in a Nazi concentration camp. This is a bleakly beautiful piece of work.