Un, deux, trois!” is the cry to unity of three sisters seemingly adrift in a wasteland in Home for Broken Turns. As the sisters pull apart from each other and are pulled apart by the direness of their circumstances, this count to three, followed by a dance sequence involving linked limbs and bodies, is their means of maintaining the cohesiveness that seems key to their survival.

It makes sense that Home for Broken Turns, though performed first, was in fact written more recently. It lacks the polish and tightness of It Needs Horses. As the three (admittedly very able) performers moved through indulgent, lengthy, mainly narrative-free dance sequences, there was the definite impression of fat that could be trimmed.

There were certainly moments that were effective, for example when Anna Finkel’s character desperately ran after an invisible motorist, gesturing clumsily to her body and shouting, “Take me! I am young and beautiful.” Such clarity of concept – in this case, a young woman’s frustration at her youth and sexuality going to waste for lack of an outlet – is what seemed lacking from much of the piece. Where physical movement rather than speech is the main mode of communication, ideological simplicity seems necessary to avoid an overall impression of confusion.

This is the strength of the second piece, It Needs Horses. The narrative here is simpler, and perhaps better suited to being conveyed through motion: a down-at-heel circus duo stoops to ever-greater lows to impress the audience and earn a few coins. As the set of Home for Broken Turns is dismantled to form a circus ring and Finkel reappears on a trapeze, her torn and muddy dress replaced by a glittery, feathery, ragged costume, continuity between the two acts is suggested.

The young girl wasting away in the first piece has run off to join the circus. But this circus seems rather like one you would want to run from. The two performers exploit and humiliate one another in turn, with each outrageous action followed by a bleak wave of a bowler hat, held out to the audience in the hope of some return.

Lost Dog: It Needs Horses and Home for Broken Turns was billed as ‘blackly comic’, but for the most part the blackness strongly outweighed the comedy. Dark and not always effective, this piece nevertheless deserves some applause for the experiment it attempts.