Akram Khan’s long-awaited third work for the English National Ballet, Creature, received its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells on Thursday 23 September. Postponed due to Covid, the work was finally performed to a full theatre – how strange that felt – with the audience masked but delighted to be able to enjoy a live ballet. Enjoy is perhaps, not the correct word to use, for Creature is an unremittingly bleak piece.

Set in a dilapidated research station in the Arctic (with an impressive set by Tim Yip), Creature is a new take on the Frankenstein story with a touch of Buchner’s Woyzeck thrown in. A thing – Creature – is created, experimented upon, used and abused, and finally abandoned. With gloomy lighting and pulsating, loud music by Vicenzo Lamagna which barely lets up, the piece demands as much from its audience as it does from the dancers. We hear, time and again, fragmented clips of President Nixon’s call from the White House to astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin; the tape is altered, cut, slowed down…yes, this is not your usual night out at the ballet.

The only moments of respite come when the Creature, played on the opening night by an outstanding Jeffrey Cirio, dances with his beloved keeper Marie (a delicate Erina Takahashi, who spends a lot of time scrubbing tables and mopping the floor). Here the music is gentler, as we see their relationship develop into something rather tender.

The dancers’ movements are jagged, frenzied and repetitive; the corps de ballet move as one: a futuristic, unfeeling group of soldiers. The work is overlong and could do with some cutting, but the dancers throw themselves into it with a great deal of passion. Khan has created a piece which is a thought-provoking assault on the senses, but it does not make for easy viewing. If you are after a fun, joyful night at the theatre, this is not for you. If your taste is for something darker then you will find it here.

Creature is at Sadler’s Well Theatre, London until 2 October. www.ballet.org.uk