Sadler's Wells, London
It may have been Tchaikovsky who inspired Pet Shop Boys to attempt their first ballet score, but the music they've written for The Most Incredible Thing is not even a distant relation to The Nutcracker or Swan Lake.
There are dance rhythms in there, and a live orchestra, but they come layered with house and trance, wild synths, romantic schmaltz and mercurial dissonances. The dance, choreographed by Javier de Frutos, also stretches the concept of ballet into new terrain – pop video, cabaret and film installation as well as contemporary dance theatre.
The story they have collaborated on is based on a late tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a king who offers his daughter and half his kingdom to the person who can show him "the most incredible thing". One of the cleverest decisions made by the Boys, De Frutos and the design team is to imagine the kingdom as a grimly authoritarian state, and the opening scene of the work is almost the best as the music's four-square beat drives the worker/dancers through exhilarating robotic formations redolent of Russian constructivism and early expressionist dance.
In fact it's the dark side of the story that this work evokes with the greatest wit and lift. The competition to win the kingdom is staged like a Soviet version of The X Factor, with a grainy film of vodka-addled judges who give their verdicts on a series of absurd, lacklustre acts. The character of Karl, the black-hearted soldier who has designs on the King's daughter, is a gift of a role for Ivan Putrov, the former Royal Ballet principal who, accompanied by a posse of military henchmen and fabulous snarls of brass and percussion from the orchestra pit, pirouettes and punches a thrilling streak of darkness through the action.
The almost-wedding scene, where Karl seeks to claim the Princess, is even better, with De Frutos orchestrating a brilliant choreographic homage to Nijinska's beautifully anguished ballet, Les Noces.
Yet this work is far less successful when it has to handle the sweeter, more magical sentiments of Andersen's tale.
The "good characters" are not uninteresting – especially Clemmie Sveaas' Princess, who has a lovely, intemperate energy (you want to cheer when she fends off Karl's advances by thrusting her foot hard against his chest). And De Frutos' choreographic invention rarely flags as he portrays the attempts of the sweet-natured artist Leo (Aaron Sillis) to create the incredible clock that will save the Princess from Karl and secure her love for himself.
Yet sweetness and love are elusive qualities, and Pet Shop Boys don't do elusive in this ballet score. From first to last, the music comes at a relentless, pop-video pace that leaves too few opportunities for the emotion within the choreography to breathe and develop. Piled on top of that come a barrage of hi-tech stage effects, constantly shifting scenery, and intrusive digital projections.
Individually, some of these effects are ingenious, even extraordinary: the coming to life of the magic clock features some beautiful imagery. Yet by the end of the evening we don't so much feel we've been told a story as blitzed by sound, colour and energy. More like a pop concert, actually, than a ballet.
• This article was amended on 23 March 2011. The band in question are called Pet Shop Boys, not the Pet Shop Boys as we originally named them.