Rob Tannion and Liam Steel are ex-members of DV8, and Steel is also well known for his work with Frantic Assembly. Together they have founded a new company, the wittily named Stan Won't Dance that indicates the pair is moving towards a more theatrical presentation of their work.
There are two texts in this impressive debut show: the script written by Ben Payne and the choreography created by the company. The two languages collide, conflict, create tensions and complement each other in a way that is extraordinarily layered and expressive. They fit together and bounce off each other as effortlessly as the soft flesh and hard bone of Tannion and Steel's bodies.
Inspired by the Soho bomber David Copeland - whose nail bomb exploded in the Admiral Duncan, in April 1999, killing three people - and owing a considerable debt to Hogg's macabre early 19th-century novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, the piece is a psychological thriller in which Steel and Tannion are a single man struggling with his alter ego in the moments before setting off his bomb. It is like watching a single moment stretched and frozen in time.
The device of two men playing one is effective, and if the images of good and evil, sacrifice and crucifixion are perhaps a little overplayed, the show explores with compassion the damaged psyche of a man who could be redeemed by love if he would only open himself up to it.
Initially the performers are not as comfortable with the vocal as they are with the physical, and the equal weight of text and movement creates a density of experience for the audience that requires some effort on their part. Quibbles aside, this is a glimpse into the new face of British dance theatre.
· At the Gardner Arts Centre, Brighton, on Tuesday. Box office: 01273 685861. Then touring.
