Since his years with the sadly defunct London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Jonathan Lunn has spent most of his time directing operas and working in films. Reading Room reminds us that he is a superb choreographer, and that he loves to combine dance with speech.

The new work is built around a long duet made in 2006 called Self Assembly. This comes near the end, and is superbly danced by Carly Best, with her animated rag-doll gestures and extraordinarily loose body. Her partner is Chris Evans. Lunn draws a parallel between the couple's efforts to come together, and the interminable instructions for a piece of self-assembly furniture, read in a calming monotone by the late Anthony Minghella.

"The components are designed to fit; please do not force them," he reads, while the two performers go through some of Lunn's most contorted and fascinating dance as they try to find togetherness. There is humour, there is longing and there is frustration. They end up entwined on the floor. Do they fit? No, they repeatedly spring apart again.

Disassembly is an engaging section specially created by Lunn for 14 members of Oxford Youth Dance, who did it justice.

Another long duet features the excellent Lilou Robert and Chris Rook. Sink or Swim is made to a text, The Ashtray, by Raymond Carver and music by Aphex Twin, and shows us a couple with a man who wants to end their relationship, and a woman desperate to save it. "From time to time he uses the ashtray as he waits for her to finish weeping" we hear, "she covers his fingers with kisses; tears fall on his wrists". The dance is highly inventive and the dancers excel.

Near the beginning comes a section called Stirrings Still, danced, though often stationary, by Chris Evans. We find him seated at a table and eventually leaving, or perhaps not leaving, the room made of mesh screens in which he is enclosed. The great wodge of text by Samuel Beckett which accompanies this unfortunately highlights the inadequacies of the reader, Dexter Fletcher, an awkward presence beside Evans. Oh for Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson or Miranda Richardson who are scheduled to read at other performances.