Think of a set of freshly dismembered limbs and organs doing a fandango to the strains of a Scottish reel; think of a piece of near-necrophilia, hysterically surreal, involving a bereaved husband and an amorous corpse; think of an all-knickers-bared Hollywood dance routine which begins elegantly and ends up with its backside in the air.
This is but a fleeting sample of the outrageous, grotesque, wonderfully black humour of Spymonkey, a company that draws its members and its inspiration from the heart of the European mime and clowning traditions.
Paris, Zurich, Seville and Salzburg are the collective stamping grounds of performers Altor Basauri, Stephan Kreiss, Petra Massey and Toby Park, as well as director Cal McCrystal, who bring a wealth of craft, experience and daring imagination to this devised show, which meanders dangerously near to the outer perimeters of the pale.
With beautiful articulation and barely concealed mischief, Park plays Forbes Murdston, the archetypal stiff-upperlipped English classical actor, of the "I was at RADA, you know" variety. He comes on, rigid with grief, to announce that he is about to present a modern tragedy, in which a trio of, regrettably, untrained, undisciplined actor friends will perform a suitable epitaph to his dead wife.
Enter Basauri and Kreiss's manic undertakers, Graves and Keller, and Massey's pixie-faced, saucy make-up artist and embalmer Amanda Bandy. What follows is a tightly controlled, ingeniously executed melodrama, which has its packed audience, many of them young first-time theatre goers, in gales of shocked laughter at the audacity, slickness and sheer naughtiness of this madcap escapade.
Play ends at the Old Museum tonight. Bookings on Belfast 90233332.