It has to be said that there are few performers who can pull off a show of this kind: a dance-theatre piece based on a drunken barmaid offering up her own nonsensical philosophy whilst performing Muppet dance moves. Wendy Houstoun, being the consummate charmer that she is, makes the whole thing look a breeze.

From the opening moments of Happy Hour the audience are in love with this absurd barmaid-on-a-bender. Structurally, the work is similar to Houstoun's previous solo trilogy Haunted, Daunted and Flaunted. There is a captivating mixture of eccentric choreography and direct delivery monologues as she struts around the stage in a drunken stupor telling terrible jokes that she can't even finish. The text takes the common vocabulary of bars and drinking and invests it with a bitter, tragicomic element as she approaches the audience and asks ‘are these ones dead at the back? Are these your dregs at the front?' A scene where she picks a fight with herself is particularly delicious. 'Who do I think I am? I know my sort. I don't want to see my face around here again or there'll be trouble because I know where I live.'

It was a disappointment that Brighton Festival chose to place the piece in a theatre when it would have been so much funnier and more poignant to see it in a bar. But this was a small drawback with Houstoun's maverick skills on display to win us over and charm us out of our shoes.