'An Innovative Design' is a twisted, expressionistic 'Toy Story' with furniture instead of toys and stark, almost Dogville-esque visuals laced with dance. The play sets a budding boy-girl romance against a cartoonish collection of animate furniture: the randy old clock, the perky blonde Swedish fixture, the fey eye-linered mirror in the cupboard, the vapid radio - they're all there. The dance sequences are deftly choreographed and the actors make excellent use of the space throughout (including one surprisingly realistic fight scene).My main problem with the play, performed with vitality and vigour by the Queen Mary Theatre Company, is the script. The onus of the production is on physical theatre, which is fine, but its plot (boy too paranoid about his furniture to keep a girlfriend), oh-so-predictable characterisation and lazy verbal humour ('what a massive clock' etc) hamstring the show and precludes a fun, knockabout afternoon's entertainment from being something that little bit extra with more bite and zest. Though the premise is a tad derivative (the ghost of 'Toy Story' looms throughout), the staging is fresh and quirky. An example of style over substance, this is a breezy, frothy, but ultimately insubstantial piece of student physical theatre.
