Tête à Tête may be one of the UK's most innovative small opera companies, but does it know when to stop? Its latest project, Odysseus Unwound, is an attempt at something that defies imagination: a work that "combines opera, knitting and spinning to portray the adventures of Odysseus".

Odysseus Unwound is certainly an opera with people knitting in it, though what a fusion of those disciplines might look or sound like is still anyone's guess. It does, however, have things going for it, not least the setting: the atmospheric haven of peeling plaster that is the Alexandra Palace Theatre auditorium.

Julian Grant's score is the biggest plus; he and librettist Hattie Naylor portray Odysseus as flawed warrior rather than noble hero, and his music is sharp, flowing and sometimes pleasingly childish, as in the conga for Circe's farting pigs. The musical performance, with Tim Murray conducting the top-notch chamber ensemble Chroma, Daniel Broad's slightly underpowered Odysseus and the five versatile women who sing every other role, is excellent.

Bill Bankes-Jones's production unfolds aided and abetted by model sheep, a basket of gingerbread men - and five Shetland-islands craftswomen, who mainly sit on the fringes of the action deftly clacking needles, though at times they join in the depiction of Odysseus's ship, rowing gigantic knitting-needle oars.

The idea of a weaving motif in an Odyssey staging isn't ridiculous - after all, according to Homer, that's how Penelope spends her time. But the woolly theme just seems shoehorned in, despite the references to "casting off" in the text and Grant's claims to have incorporated patterning techniques into his score (you can't tell). Inside this two-hour-long work there is a really good 90-minute chamber opera - one that has nothing to do with knitting.

· Until Monday, then touring. Box office: 01473 320407