It's impossible to dislike this show, which explores the rhythms and drum beats from the Cape, where Africa and Europe collided with the music and culture of slaves imported from countries all around the "big blue mixing bowl" of the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, it's also impossible to feel very strongly about it. It is perfectly pleasant, and tells a good deal about the history of the Cape people, but despite its culinary undertones, it never cooks up the kind of storm that South African creators David Kramer and Taliep Petersen achieved with previous shows such as Kat and the Kings and District Six.
Part of the problem is that Spice Drum Beat does not quite know what it is - and that uncertainty is soon conveyed to its audience. It is at its very best as a straightforward concert. The superb band centre stage beat out the melodies, in which the strains of Portuguese and Dutch folk songs sit side by side with the spicier sounds of Indonesia, Madagascar and India. Sea shanties meld with wedding songs and cheeky ditties with secret lyrics that the slaves sang for white masters who remained ignorant of their real meanings.
But the strain of shoehorning the songs into a theatrical format soon shows, not least in the fixed smiles of a personable cast, and the kind of visuals that would be more at home in a BBC Schools programme on the history of the spice routes.
In fact, the show - which takes its name from a drum fashioned from a small barrel - works best as a superior history lesson demonstrating how the Portuguese and then Dutch colonisation of the Cape created a melting pot of Asian, African, European and indigenous people, giving birth to a new syncretic culture which had Ghoema music at its beating heart. At its best, this show demonstrates that although the slaves brought from the Indian Ocean were robbed of their freedom and even their names, nobody could rob them of their music.
· Until January 27. Box office: 020-7328 1000.
