The first work in this rewarding triple-bill is EVA, which in astronaut talk stands for ‘extra-vehicular activity’ – space-walking to you and me.

Lott is concerned that while we are spending billions exploring space, we are becoming less and less connected with the earth, our only home, and with each other. We meet a mundane couple; he reading, she doing the washing up. They don’t really get on, but both dream of voyaging into space, and of being weightless.

To an eclectic soundtrack, which includes recordings from NASA mission control, and sounds from the Balanescu Quartet, they imagine themselves into space. Their dances on earth are expressive, but, once they are in space, Lott creates a real tour-de-force.

In a sequence lasting several minutes, the dancers appear to float and hover weightlessly in slow-motion choreography. Helen Wadge and Luca Zanni are a striking and well-matched couple who pull this off with much panache.

Lott had invited Pagrav Dance Company to take the middle slot. It’s run by dancer and acclaimed choreographer Urja Desai Thakore, noted as an exponent of Indian Kathak dance, but you couldn’t get further from that discipline than Detox.

While Lott showed us two people floating free in space, Desai takes us on an inward journey which explores physical, mental and spiritual detoxification. Two large, lumpy piles of glistening, apparently slime-covered netting lie on the stage. They begin to pulse and writhe like some ghastly alien monster, until five women emerge.

They begin a frantic dance in their efforts to shake it off these clinging mantles, but in vain – the toxins hang on. It’s a pessimistic but thrilling piece. Joe Lott’s second work was Tender, a look at the voyage of the archetypical hero, on his journey from the call to adventure, through ordeal and final triumph, to reunion with a loved one.

It features another fine duet for Wadge and Zanni, and brings the evening to a classy close.

4/5