Play Without Words, NT Lyttelton, London

Bourne's threesomes are a real turn on

No one remotely acquainted with Matthew Bourne's work should be surprised to find him creating a theatre piece for the National. He has always been an ideas man first, a dance maker second, baffled by critics who griped that his dance vocabulary was limited. Dance was never entirely the point. Play Without Words: The Housewarming is the fifth and last of the NT's Lyttelton summer-season commissions. Bourne, working with his re-formed company New Adventures, responds to this up-close focus with a finely nuanced domestic drama with only five characters. But in an intriguing reversal of the tactic commonly used in small-scale productions – ie doubling up when there are too many parts to go round – each of his five dramatis personae is represented by two or even three performers at once.

The function of this multi-casting is not just to fill empty stage space with interest. In the absence of spoken dialogue it also provides a way for characters to "speak" the ambiguity of their thoughts and intentions, creating a prism effect. Each scene presents two or three subtly different possibilities of response and action. And in this way each characterisation is rendered more rounded and complete. Of course, there is huge potential for confusion. All credit to the clarity of Bourne's direction and the precision of the performances that one's eyes and brain boggle only briefly at the start of the evening. Quickly it becomes clear that this is Bourne's cleverest idea yet.

A rich young man (Will Kemp, and also Ewan Wardrop and Richard Winsor, well-matched in looks as well as manner and dress) invites his girlfriend (Saranne Curtin, Michela Meazza and Emily Piercy, united by their fondness for fur-trimmed Chanel jackets) to his new Chelsea pad for drinks. The manservant (Scott Ambler, Steve Kirkham, Eddie Nixon) is attentive in the extreme, but one soon senses his resentment. While he turns the page of The Times for his master, or deftly positions himself as footstool or arm rest, secretly, he plots vengeance. Sexual humiliation, sir? Coming up.

Bourne modulates the tone of his narrative with the surest touch. In one memorably funny scene two versions of the young man are put through their morning ablutions by two versions of the butler. Their actions proceed in beautifully timed unison until one young man decides he'd like a shower, at which point that voice in the duet continues, as it were, in contrary motion, with the removal of clothes that had just been put on. There are other episodes like this, so skilfully wrought that you long to push a replay button and relive them. Very little of the substance of Play Without Words is in the form of dance, as the term is usually understood. It's silent movement derived from everyday habits and tics, meticulously observed and counterpointed. Anyone familiar with Robin Maugham's The Servant will find it odd that Bourne makes no mention of it in the programme credits. He uses its plot and characters more or less wholesale, recreating its sinister undertone as well as its period feel.

Perhaps he felt it was sufficiently well known not to bother referencing it. At all events, the creative approach is stamped right through as Bourne's. So too, is the status given to music, here an original jazz score by Terry Davies. London in 1965 could have screamed "Beatles", but the choice of jazz is more correct: a moneyed young resident of Beaufort Square, SW3, would certainly have spurned the Liverpool sound at this date. Five musicians perform live behind a screen, and some of their efforts (notably on trumpet and bass clarinet) are transporting.

Lez Brotherston, another seasoned collaborator with Bourne, applies his customary ingenuity to the set – a mid-Sixties London that manages to incorporate tourist landmarks (the Post Office Tower, Centre Point), street corners and interiors within the same scheme. The technical pièce de résistance is a dual staircase on a revolve, its base doing service as shower cubicle, nightclub bar and Tube carriage. Collectors of Sixties ephemera will have a field day too. Beyond the more expected fashions and consumer goods, I enjoyed spotting an early audio clip of The Avengers and comfort-grip suspenders.

j.gilbert@independent.co.uk

'Play Without Words': NT Lyttelton, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), to 14 September