Ay caramba! What a clumsy, peculiar hotchpotch of a dance drama this is. It comes to us via Paris, where the flamenco-trained dancer Karen Ruimy originally conceived it. The choreographer Craig Revel Horwood, best known as one of the harshest judges on the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing, was drafted in to direct and stage the West End version. He seems to have been unable to apply to his work here the same severe standards.

Jumbled together from several stories by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, the show is a faltering, flatulent study of festering sexual jealousy that comes across more seamy than steamy. The nub of the plot concerns a prostitute (Sharon Sultan) whose entanglement with two brothers (Manuel Gutiérrez Cabello and Francisco Hidalgo) has fatal consequences. Humiliation, shame and torment are the order of the day in this unhealthy ménage à trois.

Ruimy, a small woman with a limited singing voice, sporadically narrates the semi-coherent story with an English-mangling portentousness that tips over into unintentional camp. “Back at home,” she overenunciates, “life for the lovers is not all it seems”, while the cod-profundity “All it takes to die is to be alive” is uttered no fewer than four times. She also doubles as a smug, greedy madam stalking about the bordello, tucking cash into her bra.

The dancing in this unedifying spectacle - a mix of mainly flamenco, a few spots of half-baked tango and occasional injections of contemporary movement - is attributed to three different choreographers who also perform in the show. Gutiérrez Cabello’s contribution is the most effective, especially for a small ensemble of fierce, knife-wielding men who stamp away while shooting lethal looks at each other and us.

But despite a surfeit of glowering gazes, gritted teeth and rapacious smiles from them and their female counterparts, the kinetic element in Revel Horwood’s production leaves something to be desired. The stream of often dazzling artists and companies that have appeared at Sadler’s Wells or its sister theatre, the Peacock, have served us much better.

The evening contains a few pluses. Diego Pitarch’s setting, the courtyard of a galleried hacienda with nine singers and instrumentalists tucked into the upstage corners, is handsome and atmospherically lit by Ben Cracknell.

Ruimy is the letdown, especially when warbling snatches of Bésame Mucho, The Boy from Buenos Aires (as opposed to Ipanema) or a Spanish version of It’s Impossible. Indeed.

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