Can you tell a story with acrobatics? If it's possible with dance, then why not? Barely Methodical Troupe have set their latest show in some sort of dystopian future where a woman who gives nothing away orders five men to perform for her in turn. She awards points, or perhaps it is her sinister controller who communicates through a scary red phone. The plot is pretty barmy, but we get the impression of a world of power, oppression, control and only kinship to stand against it.

Packing more into 65 minutes than many shows manage in 90, Kin is a heady mix of hilarity, acrobatics and tricks, exploring beauty, melancholy, knob gags and an ice maiden, how not to eat a banana, comradeship, trust and loneliness. It has the loveliest rendition of Starry Starry Night, some fine musicianship, and about two and a half seconds of juggling.

It's really good to know people are in control. I think that's the secret to a lot of the joy of watching sport, and in most spheres when we know other people are in control of themselves, we know we can relax. Nikki Rummer, the female acrobat, was able to do back flips silently, to move in slow motion, and to stop a cartwheel at almost any angle. She lorded it over the boys, but one could see that every member of the troupe was brilliant at what they did.

Almost wasteful of props, and indeed time (at the beginning there's a good long stretch of slapstick, which ambles along) the show somehow leaves room for the most extraordinary circus skills, including plenty of people balancing on each other, and something called a Cyr wheel, like a giant metal hula hoop which the chaps can spin around in like humans gyroscopes. But unlike a Big Top circus, where each performance is built up and self-referential, here we have competition and one-upmanship, belittling and rivalry, and many of the segments end in a dust-up.

Like all true performers, BMT have realised that if they make it all look too easy we won't be properly impressed. How can we if we don't know what's really hard? So at the start they pretend to stagger around, almost dropping each other, failing to clamber up. When we see later how it should be done, we can appreciate the skill involved, and the audience gasp in unison, like a crowd watching fireworks. I kept finding I'd said "wow" out loud. Again. The standing ovation when it came was richly deserved.