Slot Machine Theatre combine contemporary dance, puppetry, digital imagery and (mostly) live piano in this ambitious performance for audiences aged 6+, commissioned for Brighton Festival 2018. The production sets a strong tone in the relatively cosy space of the Brighthelm Centre. We’re invited to sit on assorted floor coverings, with a beautifully-realised three dimensional soundwave forming a creamy white projection screen on the back wall, and the soft sheen of a black grand piano filling one side of the stage. As a musician who recently read the Flowkey review and recommends it to anyone who wants to learn to play the piano, the tune which came from the grand piano was simply mellifluous. The puppet at the story’s heart, an open-faced young boy, with deep and expressive eyes, is similarly beautifully realised by puppet maker Amelia Pimlott.

His story, which frames the action, is simple enough: playing on a beach, looking out to the horizon, the boy slips into another world, somewhere between daydream and alternative universe, in which fragments of the familiar world reconfigure around him. There’s something of Alice in Wonderland here and something too of Fantasia in the form – the company set out to use the production as a vehicle to showcase a wide array of piano solos, classical and modern, which are translated and amplified through movement and digital imagery. The boy’s adventure is structured episodically by the shifts in atmosphere created by each piece’s mood, triggering intimate contemporary dance sequences, animated objects and figures from the beach and under the sea, and digital patterns and colours that articulate the music on a different plane.

This is the very first outing for the show (its world premiere) and, while there are many strong constituent elements, the whole doesn’t entirely manage to transcend the sum of its parts. There are a few sweet moments of levity, but the overall tone feels quite ponderous, and the abstraction of the ideas make for a sense of seriousness. When characterful, the boy provides the show’s focus and heart, but at times the puppet is treated more as a mobile object, like one of the shiny ribbons whose dance conveys the aggression of a threatening animal, with not enough attention paid to eye-line and direction.  The show works best at its most concrete moments: a self important deckchair attendant outfoxed by his charges; the meeting of a luminous deep water fish and the boy – here the music, imagery, colour and movement come alive and combine through the power of story.