Given the garlands and praise heaped upon 1927’s debut production, it’s difficult to approach Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea without expectations of brilliance. Thankfully, at the company’s core is a partnership so snug and dexterous that it delivers with stylish aplomb. Susan Andrade’s deliciously wicked texts combine with Paul Barritt’s animation to create morsels as moreish as the darkest of chocolate truffles.

Essentially, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a series of pop-gothic vignettes, akin to Improbable’s Shockheaded Peter, telling of faceless tooth-fairies and gingerbread revolutionaries. The trick up its sleeve lies in the seamless interplay of live action and projection, whereby cartoon arrows pierce performers’ heads and sepia-toned lithographs spring to life. Served alongside Lillian Henley’s piano accompaniment, it resembles a silent film possessed and running amok in an empty auditorium.

Andrade and Esme Appleton perform with the utmost of dainty vulgarity – their carefully placed looks of mischief and plumy RP accents elevate the infantile cruelty of Andrade’s bittersweet poetry. They are at their best as orphaned twins so coldly courteous that butter is more likely to freeze over than melt. Having cremated au pairs and cemented lodgers, the pair turn ominously to the audience in search of a replacement grandmother ripe for torment.

Despite all the aesthetic delights of Barritt’s delicately homespun animation and Andrade’s text, however, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea needs a touch more variety of content and interrogation of form to really dazzle. In relying on sensory titillation and wry humour alone, it can at times seem an extended cabaret act teetering dangerously close to smugness.

Nonetheless, with its slick accomplishment and gossamer gore, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a sublime antidote to sugary festive cheer.

Till 5 Jan 2009