HIGH PERFORMANCE PACKING TAPE - AT THE JUNCTION

A naked performer encased in clear duck tape is suspended high above a stage cluttered with dented cardboard boxes and giant balloons. Suddenly something gives and he swings like some demented human pendulum metres in the air. The audience gasps – as well it might. And it is not the first gasp of the night. This is a gasp-filled gig.

It is hard to define this strangest of performances. Acrobat Skye Gellmann, in 70 minutes of solo dare-devil-may-care athleticism creates huge towers of empty boxes on a set that looks more like an Amazon warehouse. He balances them precariously. Precarious is adjective of the night. He climbs towers of cardboard, tumbles comically. He sits atop a tower of plastic chairs each sandwiching a large pink balloon. They pop one by one bringing the mute Gellmann down to ground level. He creates (very slowly) a tightrope made from packing tape endlessly wound around itself. There follows a series of gasp-inducing balancing acts accompanied by the goosebump-creating creaks and crackles of sticky tape being unwound.

Part circus act, part performance art, it is hard to make sense of this show. It is no doubt packed tight with metaphor: lives as empty boxes, the embryonic child wrapped in peril, pointless endeavour, the grind of mechanised work, the emptiness of existence, the lure of stationery. It doesn’t really matter as the show is immensely entertaining employing not only the artist’s fearless agility but an intense soundscape creating a nightmarish vision of a visit to Office World.

Yes, there were paint-drying moments – it takes an age to create a plastic tightrope (bet you didn’t know that) – but over all this was a very Junctiony show – off the wall, barmy but at times rather beautiful.