WHEN this utterly fascinating, febrile collaboration between Lindsay Kemp and Christopher Bruce first appeared in 1977, there was nothing quite like it in any of the other dance company repertoires. Twenty-one years on and this still holds true: no-one has really matched the synthesis of highly-charged theatricality - Kemp's bravura flourishes of poetic gore and deeply symbolic staging - and caringly attuned choreography in which Bruce introduced evocative details from Vaudeville, folk dance, bull-fighting, flamenco, even puppet shows. But there's something more. Something magical and elusive, deeply affecting and timeless about Cruel Garden which comes from the spirit of Lorca which the piece draws on and celebrates so vividly. It's a statement about the enduring power of art: the Poet (portraying aspects of Lorca himself) is repeatedly brutalised, and finally killed by an oppressive fascist

regime - and yet the beauty he has engendered, the truths he has championed, the values he has fought to sustain, are not to be as easily snuffed out as this one, fragile life. There are there to be whispered, sung, danced - to

be, as here, a source of fresh inspiration 100 years after

his birth.

I'll admit, now, that my longing to see this revival was spiked with a certain apprehension. Would the present company be able to hold a candle to my remembered ghosts? It's such a pleasure and relief to say that - though there are slight differences - this production is every bit as thrilling as the original, rich in intelligent, mettlesome performances. None more so than Conor O'Brien's Poet, who shines, especially, as the Bride, quirking his feet coyly as he glides to a fate worse than death . . . O'Brien suggests a particular, poignant femininity that makes this episode almost more harrowing than the final violent explosion of raw energy that tosses him into the jaws of death. Miranda Lind is a lovely, slithery ragamuffin of a Moon, sidling up to the splendidly impassive inquisitor of John Chesworth. There are almost too many lovely cameos to mention, but Paul Liburd's Negro, shuffling

and pistoning through the grinding blues of his workaday lot, is just one instance of the quality that exists at every level. And I haven't even mentioned the superb live music, performed by London Musici and full of the very smells, sounds, and temperatures of hot bullrings and chilling moonlit nights. Extraordinary, wonderful stuff.