The four works in this programme of dance are very different, yet they have much in common.

They all portray extremely complex characters.

Richard Alston’s choreography combines three pieces of music by Benjamin Britten and three very different poets. The bill is completed by associate choreographer Martin Lawrance’s latest work.

Lawrance’s Burning is danced by to the music of the man it portrays – the pianist and composer Franz Liszt. It’s his fabulous Dante Sonata, played on stage by the impressive Jason Ridgway. In this piece we see Liszt as his relationship with the mother of his children deteriorates.

Oihana Vasga Bujan takes Lawrance’s demanding choreography in her stride, while Nicholas Bodych dances his role well, but seems a bit young to be the experienced, dominantly charismatic composer. However this is a fine piece.

There’s only room to skim over the three Alston pieces. Rejoice in the Lamb centres on the life of the eighteenth century poet Christopher Smart, a mentally-disturbed religious fanatic, and the characters who feature in his story.

This is a frenetic piece, with Bodych again in the lead in a lonely, tormented role, in which Smart eventually finds peace through music and God.

Holderlin Fragments features the troubled German poet Friedrich Holderlin, and is danced to six of his works beautifully turned into songs by Benjamin Britten.

Two are agitated, but three of them allow the cast moments of lovely lyrical dancing, providing a peaceful interlude amidst all the evening’s drama.

But it’s back to drama as we watch the youthful French poet Rimbaud, and his older lover Verlaine.

Rimbaud’s craving for happy times is frustrated, as his wild nature and disordered senses take their toll.

The cast look good here in Fotini Dimou’s floating, bleached costumes.