Wattle and Daub Theatre, a young company from Bristol, have found the tale of Tarrare, a fugitive from an eighteenth century Parisian so-called freak show, and turned it into a theatrical event. It is a fine attempt, but only partly successful. Technically they are very accomplished company; the puppeteering is expressive, dramatic and comic in turns, the operatic voices of the two singers are stunning in range and tone, set, costume and lighting are all first class. Hats off to Tobi Poster and Aya Nakamura the puppeteers and Michael Longden and Daniel Harlock the singers. However the show never achieves the sum of those brilliant parts, dragged down by a slight musical score and a weak script.

The true story that Tom and Tobi Poster base this chamber opera on does lend itself to the versatility of a puppet show; they would be hard-pressed to put a man who can consume almost anything, conjoined twins, an autopsy, a deformed but ambulatory baby and very graphic near-hanging (complete with excrement) onto the stage using human actors. However it isn't a consistent drama or script – the narrative is sometimes rambling, in places the tension wanes, and our sympathy for poor Tarrare is undermined when his character veers towards the cartoonish. There is no spoken word (as one would expect from a chamber opera) and at times it was even hard to hear the lyrics, which added to the confusion. The musical score, charming at times, could do with more variation.

Aside from demonstrating their technical competence one has to ask why the company wanted to tell this story now. I came away feeling rather grubbily complicit in gawping at the indignities Tarrare is subjected to. The biggest problem is that the show, in spite of what is shown, isn't macabre or gruesome enough to dissect the key question at hand: our enduring obsession with people who don't conform to an accepted body type or appearance. Furthermore, and somewhat paradoxically, it is at times too explicit for what ends up being essentially a sad tale of a man who had horrendous body disorder and no place to belong.