The only crunchy bit was an eviction scene, with evident sympathies for the Occupy movement, but not even a clear political punch to follow. This dreary lecture was made-to-measure for the soft multiculturalism of cultural bureaucrats in Olympic year, but good immersive drama demands a lot more than that. It can be weird and wonderful, like Punchdrunk's excellent Faust and Macbeth-reinterpretation Sleep No More, or disturbing, like the Kursk story, staged by Sound & Fury. Now that an innovation has become a theatrical fashion, the result is too often second-rate and gimmick-ridden.

Back to the blessed relief of theatres with stages and seats: the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs (its smaller stage) has Belong by the promising young writer Bola Agbaje. It centres on conflicted urban identity, through the odyssey of Kayode (Lucian Msamati, who played the other half of Lenny Henry as the twins in the National's recent Comedy of Errors).

A self-important MP who has lost his seat after an un-PC foot-in-mouth moment, Kayode retreats to the controlling bosom of terrifying Mamma (Pamela Nomvete) and plots his second coming in Nigerian politics.

Pretty soon, he's out of his depth amid the local machinations. "Where are my manners?" inquires the local chieftain, before plonking a Rolex and two wads of cash on the table. Agbaje explores the fraught territory of belonging in neither home nor adopted country, while feeling the pull of both. "However long you live in London," says a rueful character, "people will always ask you where you're from." 

Belong has the young writer's shortcomings of being a bit shouty and a pace, under Indhu Rubasingham's direction, which veers into the hectic. But on this showing, I'd come back for more from Agbaje. She has strong characters, narrative drive and something challenging to say. Nothing is more immersive than that.