PlayRec, Trafalgar Street Arches, Brighton, until Sat, May 12

5:04pm Wednesday 9th May 2007

More than 60 per cent of Brighton Festival ticket sales are to BN postal addresses, and this is one show which very much taps into a sense of community. The strange thing is, the company is from France.

Describing themselves as "archaeologists of the 21st century", members of the acclaimed KompleX KapharnauM travel the world uncovering the stories within local communities. Having identified a space with a powerful human history, they create a multimedia work woven from the memories of those who lived or worked there.

Some six years ago, for instance, Karen Poley witnessed them create a vast piece of work in a housing estate in Sotteville-Les-Rouen, with different members of the community talking about what it was live to live there.

"They had a huge, open-sided truck full of projectors and projected the videos onto the walls of every building," she recalls. "It looked as if the different buildings were talking to each other."

Now Poley's organisation, Zap Arts, is co-producing PlayRec as part of Streets Of Brighton and their own 25th anniversary. The backdrop is the New England development, formerly the station car park and once the site of the Isetta Bubble Car Factory. The performance is a vast outdoor installation, combining video, acrobatics and live music.

"It's about how work has changed over the years," says Poley. "The show contrasts the Victorian station with modern offices across the street, and intricate, factory-type machines with high-tech video and computer equipment. In the final section, they'll create a giant painting on the side of the wall in the train station."

• For review, see Saturday's The Argus or visit www.theargus.co.uk/festival
• 8.30pm, SOLD OUT, 01273 709709

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