Clever, but is it art?

Becs Andrews's giant children's-play-area-cum-Twister-board won the prestigious Linbury Prize.
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Jeff Koons, the contemporary American artist best known for his Hoovers in Plexiglas and giant topiary dogs, does not feature in the piece that bears his name, although the vibrant, kitsch spirit of his work infuses it.

Rainald Goetz, translated adeptly here by David Tushingham, employs a stream of fragmented poetic monologues to spin into pulsing life the world of the club, the street and the artist's studio.

A power failure hampered the lighting last night, but even this hiccup could not subdue the glory of Becs Andrews's giant children's-play-area-cum-Twister-board of a design, for which she rightly won the prestigious Linbury Prize.


The energetic cast of five reconfigures a set of coloured manhole covers for each of the staccato scenes, complementing their surroundings with a range of fluorescent wigs and costumes.

There is humour in Goetz's writing, which is specifically unassigned to any of the nameless characters, and director

Gordon Anderson has his highly capable actors comment on each other's words, creating a succession of ad hoc narrators.

Yet, despite the considerable surface charm, the fundamental question persists: what does all this amount to?

In sending up the pretensions of the art world - the fawned-over and long-gestated masterpiece of the self-satisfied artist here is a huge replica Kinder egg - Jeff Koons frequently threatens to become a prime example of the very thing it mocks.

The feeling remains that the colourful new clothes belonging to this particular Emperor are no more than an illusion.

Until 27 November. Information: 020 7930 3647.

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