Circus comes to town

The opening scene of La Veillée des Abysses looks like children's theatre - a billowing stage cloth for waves, small-scale buccaneers, a man on stilts made from an old decorating ladder, two garden rakes and garage oddments.

But the next scene segues to danced farce, with raggedy girls disappearing down the back of a sofa and only sometimes reappearing. Then a woman in 18th-century tatters unfolds herself from a tiny suitcase, and seafarers swing from a crow's-nest, careering wildly from side to side. A man gets into a muddle with a newspaper and two women transmogrify into a horse. What is this show?

Then you spot a black, round carpet, practically invisible against the dark stage. This is a circus, the carpet is a modern-day sawdust ring and the performers undercover contortionists, acrobats and clowns.

Created by Frenchman James Thiérrée, La Veillée is a silent dramacum-childhood fantasy, a rascally, ragtaggedy realm that is fresh and funny and completely disarming. It conjures exotic worlds of mystery and strangeness, with innocents sailing the high seas of adventure only from the dusty safety of a cluttered attic.

The set is brilliant (old sofas, broken chairs, crumpled curtains), the performers are all excellent and every scene is inspired. The capoeira tumbling to Nina Simone's Lilac Wine, the mad opera singing, the compere without a voice. And Thiérrée himself, a gentle clown who reveals our bafflement and melancholy.

He has also choreographed a pleasing, poignant finale. The friends set sail for a magic kingdom, their imaginary anchors risen, their pretend boat at full speed. "Away, away", you almost hear them cheer. You smile, and remember childhood's endless optimism.