A tall, imposing woman in black heels and bright yellow short shorts slinks across a white stage, dragging a chair behind her, whilst a podgy, bearded man eyes her up as he glugs from a green water bottle. As the lights dim she stands poker-straight, eyes piercing the audience, before letting herself drop towards the floor. The man deftly catches her before she swings to the other side. Within moments he is catapulting her taut body up and down, left and right; he balances her on his head and trots around the space as if she is nothing but a hat.

Cru is an incredibly impressive duet between Catalan circus artists Pau Portabella and Marta Torrents. The programme notes that their work includes no special equipment or props. It is significantly richer as a result. What the duo has created is a no-holds-barred barrage of incredibly impressive acro-balance and dance, imbued with a painful narrative that evokes the ways in which couples inflict pain on one another.

There are moments where Torrents is in charge, forcing Portabella to chase after her, exhausting himself whilst trying to please. At other times she switches off completely, it is as if she isn’t there. A beautifully simple sequence sees her in neutral as Portabella gently caresses and coaxes her to touch him. But her arms are limp, flailing to the side as he desperately tries to make her hug him. It’s a devastatingly sad image of a man longing after a lost love. Elsewhere the notion of female as puppet returns as Portabella violently spins Torrents’s body in circles, so much so that you fear she may be propelled straight into the auditorium. He could be a cat playfully ripping apart a bird he’s just attacked. He takes her in his arms and shoves her heels back on before setting her off, doe-limbed into the space.  At other points it’s Torrents’s anguish that takes centre stage. There is a stunning solo in which her body convulses across the stage, taking the chair she’s sitting on with her. Her legs kick out impulsively, increasing in speed and ferociousness as her head whips back and forth, a maniacal and deeply unsettling smile plastered all over her face.

The physicality is supremely impressive. Not since Ultima Vez’s Spiegel have I seen such brutal daring with performers’ bodies. The duo are constantly spellbinding and mesmerisingly in tune with each other. Despite the darkness and sadness that permeates the piece, they manage to get us giggling towards the end, their grotesque characters cackling at the themselves – and at us.