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Nuclear semiotics is the field of research dedicated to devising warning messages for future civilisations – civilisations that will not share our languages, our symbols, our technologies, nor our bodies – that they should not disturb the radioactive waste we have buried underground.

It is a thrillingly thought-provoking topic, one articulately explored in Robert Macfarlane’s excellent book Underland, and one entertainingly examined, too, in this superb multimedia show from London-based emerging company ClusterFlux Collective. It is definitely one to watch.

The company throws a lot at the show – live-projected video, karaoke, autobiographical anecdotes, and more – and a lot of it works. Five performers, clad in white hazmat suits, play around on a tarpaulin-walled set, meditating experimentally on what it means to leave a message for someone – via voicemail, via note, via song – and the difficulty of ensuring its meaning survives intact. Apposite songs – Coldplay’s The Scientist, Britney Spears’ Toxic, Don McLean’s Vincent – recur regularly.

Throughout, the company members repeatedly return to a message they have composed to warn about the radioactive waste buried at Yucca Mountain in Nevada – but each time they deliver it, it gets more and more indistinct, scrambled by missing sentences and mistranslations. And, in a brilliant, metatheatrical touch, a white sheet rises slowly throughout the show, gradually obscuring it from view.

The whole thing emerges as an exhilaratingly ambiguous exercise in contemplating the impossibility of true communication. It is compelling and confusing, serious and silly, all at the same time – and it is an extraordinary show from an exciting ensemble.