The Carriageworks tonight played host to the premiere of “Time Gentlemen, please” - an ambitious new stage show from the Demon Barber Roadshow and Yorkshire Dance. The already impressive ranks of the Roadshow were joined by, amongst others, a three-piece hip hop team and renowned percussionist Cormac Byrne who added an extra dynamism to their already driving sound.

The stage was laid out like an English pub and into this scene the hip-hop crew swaggered first. Effortlessly throwing themselves about the stage, strong on athleticism and style. One of them finds a tankard and the adventure begins proper. Aladdin-style, he unwittingly summons the spirits of the dance, which weave their ghostly way through the audience and on to the stage.

What follows is a series of vignettes, each with various combinations of modern dance, body-popping, morris, sword dancing and even a burlesque/clog variant. At first these styles are presented as being distinct from each other. They perform separately and there is even a dance-off between the cloggers & the hip-hop crew.

Gradually though, the dances get more collaborative. Morris moves are shadowed and interpreted by the hip-hop crew, the clog dancers and the beatboxer finish each other’s beats & perhaps most strikingly a solo modern dance piece by show choreographer Bobak Walker with a single hanky that neatly sums up the unifying message of the show.

The highlights are too many to list and it would be churlish to spoil the surprises for those that haven’t seen the show. It could benefit from more talking and a stronger narrative and for a production that has much strong themes of unity, it’s a shame that there wasn’t more ethnic diversity in the cast. But this is the first night of a show of almost foolhardy ambition and it can only be regarded as a roaring success.

There are many moments that delight and amaze it succeeds both in serving up traditional dance forms on a silver platter and bravely forging new ground. Already an excellent night out, it has the potential to make the leap to much larger stages.