Architect Edward Braff is a careful man who has learned his craft well. He is not a man to overreach himself because he is not a man who can deal with failure. He would prefer to die than hear the jeers of people rejoicing at his downfall.
So when he starts thinking that his latest project, the building of a new cathedral for a wealthy patron, has gone badly wrong and thinks he will be a laughing stock, he decides to kill himself. But Death - a small, bearded woman in a sharp suit - is having none of him, and Braff is left suspended between heaven and hell.
Improbable's meditation on creativity, life, death and the whole damn thing is a typically eccentrically engaging piece of storytelling told with the kind of dash and flair that Braff himself lacks. This is a show that constantly proves that you have to take risks, you have to overreach yourself, if you are to be truly creative - even if that means turning up on stage in the wrong costume and risking everyone laughing at you.
Like all Improbable shows, it is eclectic, tacky, gloriously messy, self-consciously theatrical and full of surprises, whether it is a sudden trapdoor descent or a collision of high and low culture. Here the intensely spiritual and meditative sits side by side with The Exorcist and disco glitter balls. Sometimes, it has the grave grace of a medieval painting; at others, the raucous levity of a TV game show.
When Death goes on strike in protest at Braff's do-it-yourself approach to dying and suspends all operations, a world that pretends death doesn't happen becomes obsessed with mortality.
The generals are particularly pissed off. They keep having battles but nobody dies, so they cannot tell who has won. As one complains bitterly: "The whole thing has become meaningless."
That is, of course, partly the point. For what is life without death? What is work without aspiration? What is art if it does not attempt to touch the divine? The cast are so endearing and so completely lacking in caution that I could have eaten them up. I'm dying to see this again and again.
· Until June 21. Box office: 08700 500 511.
