Four performers, some coloured panels and a few cylinders of varying colours. The panels slide backwards and forwards, revealing one performer and then another as if they were engaged in a very simple game of peek-a-boo or hide and seek. The cylinders are opened and taken apart to reveal surprises, big and small. It doesn't sound very promising, but this latest show from Theatre-rites is something to make a song and dance about.
If you were to make a list of the great British theatre companies of the past 10 years, it would almost certainly include Complicité, Improbable and Kneehigh - but Theatre-rites would be up there, too. If you have not heard of them, it is because they are the Cinderellas of the theatre world: they work exclusively with children. The company's site-specific work is world class, and if this studio show for the under-fives is not vintage Theatre-rites, it is none the less a pleasure.
In One Ear is an exploration of sound in our lives, and of how we use music to express ourselves and connect with others. It is on one level the simplest of clowning shows, and on another an existential examination of friendship and the way different kinds of instruments and people are required to make the richest mix. At the end, the children get a chance to cooperate and make sweet music themselves.
There are wheels within wheels here - and circles within circles, and instruments within cylinders. This is a piece that uses hardly any spoken words, yet is enormously expressive about the power of music in our lives. The show has a gleeful cheekiness in its little-and-large scenarios, and the performers are wonderful in their stillness, their seriousness and the intensity of their clowning. A little delight for the littlest members of the family.
· Until January 1. Box office: 08700 500 511.
