Think Truly, Madly, Deeply reimagined for the theatre with a cast of three and a spiral staircase taking a starring role, and you have something of the flavour of this show. It will either irritate the hell out of you or seduce you with its melting beauty.
Full of bad wigs, bad records and good feelings, it tells of a three-way friendship and the grief and pain that ensues for the survivors when one of the trio is snuffed out like a birthday candle. Throughout the 90 minutes, four ice-encased photographs of the missing friend - played by the winning Hayley Carmichael - slowly thaw, creating a pool of tears beneath each one.
The show comes courtesy of Company FZ, which gave us the marvellous Throat, one of the few British shows that have successfully taken circus into the realm of narrative and metaphor. This show doesn't have Throat's power, largely because it seriously underuses both the staircase and the circus skills of performers Flick Ferdinando and Jonathan Priest, preferring to concentrate on the comic and the cute.
At its worst - that being when it tries too hard to please the audience, rather than really put them through the emotional wringer - Loser has as bad a case of the cutes as I've seen in the theatre for a long time. The only reason you don't throw up is because at its best it also has an off-the-wall originality, a divertingly skewed view of the world.
There are moments, particularly towards the end when Ferdinando and Priest's bodies snake and slide down the staircase and fold across each other, when the show has a physical eloquence that makes grief and memory seem like something you can reach out and touch. If it would just dare to take a few more risks, it would be very nice indeed. It might make even the most cynical of us believe that there are angels and ghosts out there watching over us and willing us on.
· Until May 16. Box office: 020-7307 5060. Then touring.
