Dostoevsky’s story of a poor but vain musician who is driven mad by hearing a truly talented player is told in this solo performance through the eyes and voice of his adoring stepdaughter, in a production that introduces British audiences to a Russian acting style that is operatic in its passions even to the point of disorienting excess.

Actress Vera Filatova declares the broad style from the first seconds, when the simple statement “I cannot remember my father?” explodes like an excited football cheer, and maintains it to the very end, when the sad fact of the stepfather’s death is trumpeted triumphantly.

There are moments when this incongruity actually enhances the narration, as in the comic description of a bad dancer but for too much of the hour one must fight the suspicion that Filatova, who in fact is British-trained and speaks perfect English, doesn’t know what she is actually saying, so incongruous is her phrasing and emoting.

The attempt to raise what is actually a very small and touching story to passionate high drama, which also involves a music track that is far too grand for the fragile material it accompanies, does not succeed, leaving the technical interest of this unfamiliar style the piece’s primary attraction.