GOD (Grumpy Old Dancers) and A Beautiful Hell

With titles like these, who could resist pairing these two contrasting pieces as a double bill? But they have more to complement each other than their names, one being an unashamed celebration of grumpiness by two veterans of dance, the other a study of the cruelty and beauty of youth.

Andy Howitt and Alan Greig are Grumpy Old Dancers who have wanted to perform together for 25 years. To a chuntering soundtrack that throws up lines like "bloody nonsense" and "he comes in every day with a new idea," they swing in and out of a sensitive duet that occasionally turns savage with the odd headlock, but overall leaves us feeling rather affectionate towards grumpiness.

Savagery emerges in darker form in Edge FWD's A Beautiful Hell. And what a hell it is. Dreamlike lighting creates a liminal state as a cast of pyjama-bottom-clad male dancers enact cruel nightmares like sadistic angels around Joseph Reay-Reid. A string quartet blares Jimmy Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' as he is beaten, Lord of the Flies style, by the others. Later, he shouts unheard as they preen and posture to Roy Orbison.

An underlying current of aggression fizzles through their movements, both dizzily sensual and darkly unsettling, and continues through Reay-Reid's final stormy solo. Seeing performers push their bodies to the limits is one of the great pleasures of watching dance, and the energy that comes off this ensemble is electric. When they fling themselves, they really fling themselves, when they scream, they mean it. Just as well those grumpy old dancers know the next generation of dance is in good hands.