We Must Eat Our Suckers with the Wrappers On, part of the Barbican’s BITE:03 season, found Orlin working on a larger scale but in a more austere frame of mind. Featuring an all-black cast of young adult graduates from Johannesburg’s Market Theatre Laboratory, the piece was an elaborate and deliberately primitive ceremony about grief and prevention constructed around HIV/Aids.

Robyn Orlin doesn't tread softly around sensitive issues, she wades into them and kicks their butts. While her last show poked fun at South Africa's racial politics, We Must Eat Our Suckers with the Wrappers On is about the Aids epidemic. As the odd, rude imagery of its title signals, this is a production as queasy as it is bold. Orlin's style is not to preach but to rattle. At the start of the show, she allows us one simple moment of sympathy as the cast sing a heart-rending hymn of faith and endurance. A stagehand moves a webcam between their faces, and looks of rapt hopefulness are beamed around the stage.