Helium

At last! An OSBTT Award-winning show that's well worth the price of the ticket (let alone the £27K award-pot). After past technology-laden turkeys, this year the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust awarded r&d development grants to four short-listed companies with 'innovative' theatre proposals, then picked the winner on the basis of a practical presentation. Result? A charmingly inventive piece of experimental theatre which plays even better than it promises to on paper. Traditionally, OSBTT assists young companies who think outside the box. Yorkshire-based theatre-makers Slung Low up-end that idea by taking the audience into the box – quite literally; each of the five scenes in this 35-minute show takes place in a custom-built wooden box-room with space for one viewer. The script is quirkily apt and touching despite its lack of development. And the dioramas you enter (they include a miniature cinema and the bomb-chamber of a WW2 bomber) are wonderful, combining the art of film and the homespun, heartfelt craft of theatre.