A quirky little Tango

This boldly innovative torch song begins with two Kafkaesque railway porters in long coats and felt hats inspecting the audience's 'dance-card' programmes with hand lamps.

Then, on a simple chequered floor against a background strung with sequins, they and their colleague detain two couples and a woman who are waiting for a train, prompting each in turn to explain their identities.

This they do in dance and mimed song to an amazing dervish of a soundtrack that includes Nigel Kennedy-inspired Balkan music, The Art Of Noise and Bette Midler. The porters themselves provide wildly exaggerated mimed musical accompaniment on imaginary saxophone and pianos.

Imagine rock fans furiously playing along to a concert on air guitar and you have a sense of the rapture of the piece. A quirky and completely unscripted conception, it tells - with two brooms, a flower and barely a sentence of dialogue - a story of longing and loneliness culminating in tragedy but also in redemption. Above all it's a celebration of the human spirit and the absolute purity of love.

Some of the audience made full use of the paper tissues that had been handed out to cry into, while others sat bamboozled. Occasionally, too, some of the visual tropes used by the cast didn't quite convince. But, judging by the clapping, everyone found the rhythms of Tango Apocalypso irresistible.

Until Aug 28, Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street WC1, Mon to Sat 7.45pm, Sat mat 4pm, £15, £9 concs. Tel: 020 7388 8822. Tube: Euston