Oscar Wilde once said: "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearance." On that basis alone, this latest piece from physical theatre specialists DV8 should score highly. It is almost obscenely good-looking as it pokes fun at our obsession with appearance, teasing and seducing us with its own dazzling visual perfection, its display of exquisitely beautiful bodies and quite breathtaking use of illusion, even while it scorns the very notion that we are only what we appear to be - a Prada handbag, an Armani suit, Narcissus swooning at his own reflection in the mirror.
Staged like a series of ultra-modern takes on the old-style teeth-and-tits variety turns from behind a swagged red curtain, Just for Show conjures Blackpool, Las Vegas and Supermarket Sweep as well as the fashion catwalk and the glossiest of pop videos. It is so shiny that it dazzles as the performers preen and strut like peacocks trying to outdo each other, their bodies crying "Look at me! Look at me!" as they tumble and cascade through the air in rippled muscled perfection, as if their bones have turned to silk. It is appallingly seductive; almost impossible to resist.
The languid knowingness can become a little wearing, though, and the show doesn't just drip irony, it is awash with it, particularly in a script that has the perkiness of a piece of witty advertising copy. It makes its point right from the start in the woman who declares her independence even while her limbs are being manipulated like a shop-window mannequin by three men. Some sequences - such as the yoga class - are simply over-extended jokes, and the atmosphere of self-obsession is perhaps carried a little too far in the jokey self-reverential DV8 questionnaire that demands to know whether DV8 shows require better a) costumes; b) T-shirts; c) content.
Yet it is these imperfections amid so much perfection that are part of the appeal of a piece that constantly gives us little glimpses of what happens when the fourth wall is breached, the mask begins to slip and the veneer loses its gloss. It knows that illusion is a way of hiding the empty heart beneath and that we behave like gaudy, glamorous butterflies because deep down we realise we are no more than a handful of dust. A little less high sheen and a little more bitterness and this would be a perfect 10, a reminder that without our illusions about ourselves, life would be unbearable and that because of them our lives are absolute lies, told beautifully.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7452 3000.
