Spring Loaded is The Place's platform for not-yet-established choreographers and companies, and has been a stepping stone in the way to success for artists such as Matthew Bourne and Russell Maliphant. Smith Dancetheatre appear as part of this year's programme with Agnes and Walter: A Little Love Story, their debut production. It is loosely based on the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, in which Mitty's dead-end lifestyle is punctuated by a series of fantastical daydreams, of which he is the daring protagonist.
Agnes and Walter begins winsomely. Dan Canham as Walter and Sarah Lewis as his wife Agnes mime out their fantasies together – an alteration to the original story, where Agnes berates Walter for his wayward thinking. They act with great comic timing and entertaining physicality. In such a narrative piece many choreographers would have resorted to a use of text, but Neil Paris admirably does not. He trusts in his movement to tell his story, and it does, for the most part – though perhaps a little incoherently later on.
The story is one of love and the secret excitement found behind ordinary disguises. Rather than the longing for escape inherent in the source material, Agnes and Walter tells of how a relationship remains strong and happy as the couple allow and enable each other to dream. It is an unconventional love story, at times passionless and mundane; the couple seem distanced and disinterested except when lost in their imaginings.