A WILD January night was lent extra depth care of a thought-provoking but ultimately mixed performance.

Actress Eleanor Bron, dressed in a flamboyant cape gave a series of light, even readings of melodrama that avoided what we have come to understand by the term, harking back to the original meaning of simply words and music together.

Far to the left, dressed in black, sat the ensemble Counterpoise. In the expanse between them lay the film element.

The first half was the more satisfying. With Ghosts Before Breakfast, a silent film from 1927, filmmaker Hans Richter could be said to have provided the blueprint for Monty Python. Sensitively played, the new score nevertheless felt too conventional. Edward Rushton’s The Concoction Of A Charlatan might have been a more apt accompaniment, offering Kyle Horch a spotlight to show a flair for comic timing on saxophone.

The apocalyptic Shadow by Edgar Allan Poe can still chill after 173 years and the modern chamber music accompaniment was unsettling, which was doubtless the intention.

A more satisfying union was achieved with MM51/Nosferatu by Mauricio Kagel. In a three dimensional performance, pianist Helen Reid mirrored a celluloid counterpart accompanying the early horror film. This deservedly received the warmest applause of the evening.

While the playing on Rushton’s On The Edge was once again exemplary, it was only intermittently absorbing. For example, the monotone, icy, cracking Alpine cold was wonderfully conveyed.

The physical distance between Counterpoise and Bron was a hindrance, and most eyes stayed fixed on the screen. Avalanche underwhelmed, but the performance ended on a high, eerie, spectral note with a folk tale that caught the requisite blend of music, spoken word and film.