The Factory

In a not too distant dystopian future, rabid consumerism has engulfed the world. Personal identity is defined through designer branding, and corporate conglomerates dictate every thought and action. Individuality has given way to conformity, and in the Wellesian factory where ghoulish workers struggle to continually increase output, humans have been reduced to cogs of a well-oiled machine. Bred to become standard Betas or Deltas to optimise labour, the workers are mercilessly incinerated when their usefulness on the commercial line is exhausted.

Merging intense physicality with an impressive array of the projected images and text, Bristol-based Precarious' latest project is certainly ambitious. This new work from the company that brought hit show Druthers to last year's Fringe arrives hotly anticipated, and contains more than a fair helping of the company's trademark digital imagery. Repetitive, robotic choreography effectively portrays the workers' monotonous routine, while close-up video footage of the factory's leering “prefect” recalls the haunting face of Big Brother in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Streams of images broadcast on to makeshift screens – silk sheets, cardboard boxes, tabletops – and a thumping, grinding soundtrack turn the show in to a relentless sensory assault that batters the audience from beginning to end.

Certain themes, such as the commercialisation of the female body, are arrestingly represented. A scene in which the bodies of three semi-naked dancers are strung up by the ankles like carcasses of meat is particularly disturbing. Yet in other places the show lacks subtlety, with the spoken word glaringly overused; Precarious seem so determined to fulfill their mission statement for the project - “to awaken the most gluttonous consumer to the true value of life” - that entertainment too often gives way to preaching.