This was the launch performance of a new professional physical theatre company for Oxford. Strengths and weaknesses were on view in equal measure. There is no doubt that there is a lot of talent among the four women and the single man, director Danny Scott, who comprise PointZero, and there were many glimpses of what this company can become, but also a view of the distance still to be travelled.

The first piece, Ritual, was performed by Anja Meinhardt, Barbara Baer, Sissi Tellechea and Hannah de Cancho, and is an amusing take on the everyday habits and rituals of a group of women – hoovering, doing their make-up, chopping food and so on, and serves as a good introduction to the evening’s performers.

Next came Lullaby, an extremely lengthy solo conceived and performed by Barbara Baer. It follows the experiences of a young girl from the age of perhaps four up till maturity, by which time life has turned her into a tart. A great mime could be convincing as a child, and also make unnecessary the countless on-stage costume-changes that hold up the action and destroy the atmosphere. Baer is rather embarrassing at the start, but comes into her own as the character develops.

There are almost as many intrusive costume-changes in Danny Scott’s nicely performed Reflections of a Man, in which he pursues the question “what is a man?” Highlights are the speedy character-changes, each well observed and clearly defined, and his hilarious rendering of It’s Hard to be Humble while doing his ablutions. Finally came Masquerade, a brightly-coloured and energetic kaleidoscope of many different aspects of life as a woman.

The programme asks us to view all this as “works in progress”. In my view, if you’re presenting a new company to the world, you should complete that progress first, and show the very best you can achieve