Flamingo Bar/Away with the Fairies

The puppeteer has come out to exult in the art of displaying the art of the puppeteer. In both shows Frank Soehnle (from the Figuren Theater in Tubingen) and Ronan Tully (bringing alternative puppetry to the Lambert dynasty), are in full view, displaying the symbiotic ties that bind the performers, human and artificial.

Soehnle's flamingos yearn for contact - they preen, stretch and dance. They are wonderfully-wrought parodies of humanity - gnarled bony fingers, skeletal bodies wrapped in voluminous fabrics, gaunt faces with gaping jaws - evocative of Giacometti, whom they quote in their programme. Soehnle shadows their every move; they are vibrantly alive. Of course it's all an illusion - after the show the puppets are abandoned on the stage - but while the master is present they exude ambidextrous sexuality, flexibility, versatility, the whole gamut.

Soehnle's visible presence among his creations allows us to appreciate the risks he takes, relying like some knowing physicist on the laws of gravity and movement to ensure that his strings don't tangle and his figures don't crash to earth.

Puppetry has a capacity for dual vision: there is a loneliness at the heart of Ronan Tully's Away with the Fairies which is both introspective and witty, though the humour verges on pathos. He seems to be straining to find his metier: the hungover lager lad monopolises to the point of tedium, but his tiny, delicate figures, including a flying, miniaturised Bono, are hauntingly absurd.

Away with the Fairies will be performed tomorrow at 7 p.m. To book phone 01-2800974