Armchair acting at its comfy best

Chair has no words, no discernible storyline and lasts barely half an hour

Chair has no words, no discernible storyline and lasts barely half an hour. Yet in the brief time allowed, Kabosh conjures up, out of a pile of old sofas, 30 minutes of exquisitely surprising theatrical fun. Three actors - Paul Dinnen, Alexandra Ford and Mary McNally - combine silently and intriguingly to create a moving web of physical theatre, in which inanimate objects take on a life of their own and pictures form, only to vanish and reform somewhere else.

The sweet-faced McNally emerges from a pile of old discarded clothes and goes, childlike, in search of a far-off dream. She is thwarted every inch of the way by the malevolently mischievous sofa twins of Dinnen and Ford, who, far from being couch potatoes, inhabit their own bizarrely topsy-turvy world inside these mundane, everyday objects. Designer David Craig is responsible for an adventure playground, which provides them with limitless inventive opportunities, while Amy Smyth's landscape of pleated, plastic and floral lightshades plots an upward path towards the ultimate goal sought by the child.

Meanwhile, the audience lies back blissfully in neoncoloured blow-up sofas, crashes out into the mesmerising soundtrack and, as bidden by director and chief magician Karl Wallace, simply enjoys.

Chair is at the Old Museum until Saturday, March 4th; to book phone 08 01232 233332

Jane Coyle

Jane Coyle is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in culture