Half-baked japery on the musical menu

Each evening of its miniature festival offers a starter, main course and afters. Throw in a meal deal and you have a recipe for a stimulating night.

Unfortunately the opening night crossed the line dividing ad-hocism from amateurishness. Director Bill Bankes-Jones invited audience feedback, which sounds uncomfortably like creativity by focus group.

The promised main course of six short operas turned out to be four, all semi-prepared: later in the season they will have orchestral accompaniment; here they had only piano. Nothing wrong with that or JP Gandy¡¯s pianoplaying or the singing of Stephanie Corley, Susan Atherton and Damian Thantrey.

Each piece (one each by Jason Yarde, Gary Carpenter, Anna Meredith and Chris Mayo) seemed more operatic parody than opera. Moments of off key lyricism surfaced and Bankes-Jones¡¯s production was inventively low-budget, but too much was half-baked japery.

The other courses? Ellen Parry and Catherine Kontz, both blindfolded, revisited 1960s happenings, Parry playing cello while Kontz teetered around, bumping into objects that then occasioned an action. Kontz showed off some virtuoso whistling, but the piece rather rambled .

Dominique le Gendre played ukulele and sang some calypso and two of her own woefully under-prepared songs. All rather indigestible; the rest of the festival looks more appetising.

¡ñ Until 26 August. Information: 020 8237 1111.

Tete A Tete: Blind Date
Rivington Studios
Rivington Street, EC2A 3DT