'Kill all your darlings,' goes the writer's mantra, but it sometimes feels as if devised theatre doesn't just keep its darlings alive, it smothers them with kisses and gives them their own playroom.
Napoleon In Exile, devised by its impressive four-strong cast and director Chris Goode, is a case in point. It's a happy enough container for some luscious bits of stagecraft, conjoined by Goode's atmospheric soundtrack.
But as we follow the case of the amnesiac in a Vancouver hospital, the woman who thinks she's Napoleon, and the wacky Scottish doctor there to help, our bourgeois desire for answers will go unrewarded.
By way of compensation - pretty decent compensation, in fact - we get ideas about identity and memory, truth and fiction, conveyed through dance, deadpan wit, funny gadgetry and an only half-successful stab at screwball dialogue between doctor and nurse.
It's the kind of show that makes time for a pyjama-clad amnesiac to sing La Mer as Bonaparte lays her index cards in a circle.
This 90-minute show is too richly imagined for its artiness to be irksome for long. But, equally, its emphasis on set pieces above narrative makes it no more than the sum of its very pleasant parts.
Until Feb 28 (weekends only), Drill Hall, 16 Chenies Street WC1, Sat 8pm, Sun 4pm, £10, £7 concs, Sun £5. Tel: 020 7637 8270. Tube: Goodge Street
Napoleon In Exile
