Along the road between home and elsewhere anything might befall a returning soldier – even the loss of his soul to the devil. This is the tale set to music by Stravinsky for an ensemble of eight musicians and told here with a lavish cast of finger puppets, shadow puppets and hand puppets all made by the two puppeteers themselves.

The space of the performance, both for the live musicians and the puppets, is set within a thicket of strings, connecting floor to ceiling – the world above to the world below. The black walls of the theatre itself are also put to use to chalk up the titles – and the moral – of each of the scenes.

If this enjoyable evening did not, however, completely captivate, this is because the tale is not told entirely through the detail of the puppets’ action. There is a tendency to rely on the description given by the musical scenes, with the puppets simply providing an accompanying tableaux

But hopefully the production will have a longer life than just these few performances in London and will therefore continue to develop, as it deserves to. For it was a pleasure to watch and holds great promise.