Home sweet home! The stage is set as a studio apartment – or perhaps as an old-fashioned theatre set. A table and chairs, a wooden chest cum sofa, a pull-down bed, a bookcase, a toilet, two windows, a door. Two identically dressed men (black trousers and waistcoats, white shirts, white faces, slicked back black hair) pop out of the bed fully dressed, galvanised by the sound of an alarm clock, tripping and charging across the space. Breakfast time! A series of pulleys strung above and around the table provide the opportunity for plenty of clever play: passing the salt becomes a whole theatre of engineering (with a nod in the direction of Akhe company). The flock wallpaper bursts into life as a pair of guitarists ‘emerge’ from the wall space between the windows. They seem to act as echoes of our two heroes. (Or perhaps we should say ‘the voices of’’?) A mannequin’s leg is discovered in the wooden chest, a plan is hatched, the two inventors pop on their white lab coats – and not long afterwards the men (and their musical alter egos) are joined by a walking, talking, living doll, brought into being to serve their every (domestic) need.

What ensues is an odd and interesting mix of acrobatics, slapstick, farce, illusion, and live music – with the animated set acting as far more than a frame, often a central element of the action. The mock ‘real’ becomes super-surreal. What starts as a whacky gadget-loaded boys-own environment (Caractacas Potts meets Heath Robinson) becomes less and less of a real space and more and more of a fantasy construction, driven by dream logic. The bookcase turns into a fridge, which later spouts a great froth of foam. Pictures on the wall spin. Stepladders teeter. Walls and doors revolve. People dive through windows and disappear through other people’s laps. The bed becomes a wardrobe, the wardrobe a piano. Songs are sung from all sorts of odd places – the top of the wardrobe, the very edges of the room. And meanwhile the robot girl mops and mops and mops…

Lebensraum is inspired by, and loosely based on, Buster Keaton’s short film The Scarecrow. The show’s creator, Jakop Ahlbom, takes the film’s starting point – two men occupying a shared space full of gadgets and their rivalry over the search for a wife – and gives it an interesting modern twist in the interpretation of ‘wife’ as ‘domestic servant’. Of course, this being the twenty-first century, the robot girl rebels (or perhaps it’s just her wiring going AWOL), the men get more than they bargained for and inevitably get their come-uppance. Chaos descends, with that wonderful bad-dream feeling that if only we could wake up, it’d all be alright. But it’s not all over yet – within the dreamworld is another one, a land of Arcadian pleasures. The victor’s spoils – or an afterlife for the defeated? There is an odd sub-text in the piece of the Nazi concept of ‘lebensraum’ – beyond the literal meaning ‘living space’, a conquering of other (inferior) people’s space in the pursuit of the Aryan dream. I have no idea if this is intentional – but it is interesting that a Swedish/Dutch company have chosen this German word with loaded associations as the title of their show.

Lebensraum is a fascinating piece of work. In contrast to most shows that use live music, there’s a very brave decision taken to place the musicians (members of Indie band Alamo Race Track) completely within the fantasy world created, totally upfront and demanding as much attention from the spectator as any other element of the show. This isn’t unique (think, for example, of the work of Heiner Goebbels, or of Clod Ensemble) but it is rare, as in theatre, music is usually used at the service of the performance rather than as an equal partner. Although it is a completely different beast, there are echoes of Shockheaded Peter in the use of a band (Tiger Lillies in that case) as the vocal storytellers through song. In Lebensraum, this sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t. I love the image of the two guitarists standing stock still on either side of the stage, or singing from the top of the wardrobe. At some other points, the fact that they are not actors on stage with very competent physical theatre performers feels a little uncomfortable. Occasionally, the music and stage action seem at odds, competing for our attention.

The three physical performers are all extraordinary in their acrobatic skills – with a special mention to robot-girl Silke Hundertmark, resplendent in a lace dress and yellow leggings, who does everything the boys do and then some. There have been many a time that we’ve seen dolls cleverly depicted on stage, but my goodness this woman is extraordinary, maintaining the made-of-wood illusion for more than an hour whilst tumbling and turning every which way: over bodies, tables, chairs; in and out of windows, walls and doors.

Lebensraum is a not-quite-perfect show, as somehow the whole feels a little less than the sum of its extraordinary parts – but it’s a very good show with some groundbreaking elements.