Hampstead Theatre's re-location to a splendid new home is without doubt the most auspicious opening of the year - writes our theatre critic Mark Shenton - but it begins inauspiciously with a piece of site-specific, performance art that seeks to say something about the building, rather than being the sort of art the theatre was built for...

VIDEO: Entertainment reporter Amanda Hussain talks to artistic director Jenny Topper and takes a tour of the new building. You can watch by using the link below: click here (2, 057Kb/ 01'54") Real Player required

Station House Opera's 'How to Behave' is in two parts. First, to the accompaniment of an audio guide, you are led on a trail through the new venue - from the administrative offices to the dressing room corridors, beneath the stage and onstage - that is a bit of a trial.

Not only does the commentary tell you what to think about the venue, it even suggests things for us to say to each other en route. (And 'us' being English, this attempt at 'audience participation' fell completely flat: I heard no one using the suggested phrases to each other).

But then things get worse: we're invited to take a seat in the beautiful, fan-shaped new auditorium, and witness a witless farrago that palls after about five minutes, but goes on for more than fifty.

Here, we watch the performers - to call them 'actors' would be overstating the case - interacting with their life-sized video doubles, doing similar things elsewhere in the building that we've just toured around. Before, we were told what to think; now, we simply don't know what to think, let alone say.

I've seen Station House Opera before, in a show called 'Mare's Nest' at the South London Gallery, and a little of their techniques go a long way. As a piece of installation art in an art gallery, it's the kind of thing they might give a Turner Prize to - but theatre demands more narrative, more sense.

While I can see that Hampstead's soon-to-depart artistic director Jenny Topper wanted to show off her spanking new building, guided tours would have done the trick - and a good new play would have served far better notice of what it's there to house.

'How to Behave' runs until 21 February. Box office: 020 7449 4200 Website: Hampstead Theatre
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