fringe round-up; Frantic Assembly

Many fringe shows promise sex on a plate, but few do so with quite the lippy wit and insolent iconoclasm of flesh. The stylised naturalism of the show more than lives up to its own introductory hype: "What you see is what you get. This is not Boxing Day, this is the real thing."

Stripping off and slamming around the stage to pumping dance music, Frantic Assembly's in-your-face performance menaces the audience with youth and sexuality. Between dances, the company's four crop-haired clones invent plausible characters from the identikit vocabulary of small ads. Alternating between glib, poetic rap and confessional monologue, they create a perverse present where sex is all and nothing, a commodity governed by the market forces of multiple fetishes. Be warned. Frantic Assembly may offer their bodies for consumption but they spike their sex with a smart commentary on exploitation, prostitution and the hypocrisy of middle class voyeurs.

n The Assembly Rooms. To Aug 31, (not 27)

LS