How much hubris is necessary to try to approximate nature in words, sounds and stage pictures? The British company Fevered Sleep undercuts the notion by humbly staging its ambitious, impressionistic tribute to Brighton's light and weather in a claustrophobic brick-walled basement venue in the town centre.

Presented by the Brighton Festival, this unusual multimedia production is artier and more questioning than any conventional sound and light show. For 90 minutes or so we sit on tiered benches gazing into a fairly deep but low-ceilinged space fronted by a white frame. Inside are the actor-dancers Laura Cubitt and Jamie Bradley, the double-bass player David Leahy, the violinist Jamie McCarthy and an exceptionally obedient white horse with dark spots named Phoenix.

The beast stands about looking magnificent and, occasionally, expectant, as the busy, likeable human beings recite text, chat to each other or shift the various oblong platforms and walls that comprise the mobile set and serve - as does Phoenix - as projection screens. The director, David Harradine, has designed all their efforts imaginatively to convey the colours, textures, sounds and feelings associated with the quality of light in this seaside location.

It works, in part, thanks to some ingenious, painterly coups de théâtre. You want clouds scudding across sun? Simply direct amber light at a spinning mirror ball. Daybreak happens far upstage, with a fluctuating palette backing the silhouetted horizon line embodied by an open-armed Bradley. Cubitt has a wonderful bit buried up to her thighs in reflective metal sheets, while Bradley's use of upturned wineglasses as stepping stones is brilliant.

Fevered Sleep's sensory, dream- like show is at times naive, distancing, prosaic and saddled with too much verbiage. Still, I appreciate its acknowledgment of the absurdity of its own task. And, changeable as the weather, I may feel differently about the experience tomorrow.

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