In the space of 50 minutes director Carrie Cracknell, together with choreographer Jane Mason, presents a series of true-life stories: a desperate mother with a young toddler in a burning house; a daughter with a father in cardiac arrest; a man who ends up several miles down the road from his arm following an accident with a chainsaw (a familiar story, having been reported by the UK media in 2008).

The dance sequences act as a form of 'punctuation', intense but repetitive. While the stories are cleverly interwoven with one another, the use of dance as a metaphor for human fragility was reiterated too frequently.

The rawness of the transcripts was at times unrelenting and the audience could have done with some respite. That said, the final scene of a successful home birth guided by an unseen operator was a bit too obviously meant to symbolise the human instinct to survive.

The fluidity of Temitope Ajose-Cutting’s dancing in particular is undeniable and the raw performances of the actors successfully convey the potency of the calls. In fact the most memorable aspect of this show ends up being these transcripts - real crises faced by real people - and the staging highlighted the emotional aspect of these.

Breathing Irregular is, at times, a fascinating depiction of human endeavour in the face of tragedy and a poweful statement on the fragility of life. But it has a tendency to overwork its metaphors and the mixture of choreography and spoken word left this viewer feeling a little frazzled and wishing that the stories had been given greater freedom to speak for themselves.

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