Only fanatics have taken the Moog deadly seriously since its prog heyday.

Partly it’s the name, and the audience on Thursday night tittered whenever leader Will Gregory announced another member of the line-up: the Eurorack, the microKORG, the MiniBrute.

The noises from these electronic marvels also raised a laugh, sounding occasionally like a spaceship misfiring or a sinking submarine.

But the ensemble were able to show the synthesizer’s versatility, reinterpreting pieces by Messiaen, Bacharach and others to create surprising moments of tenderness and grandeur equal to the pomp and ceremony of any coronation.

An original piece by ensemble member Eddie Parker was less successful, drawing unkindly but involuntarily giggles from the audience at its close, taken aback that the series of long-drawn out notes and pauses was all the piece comprised of.

The highlight was John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, which had all the menace and suspense you could ever want from a piece of music. The second half of the performance was centred around another figure of fun, Tiger Tim Henman.

With his reputation for English timidity and underachievement, slow-motion shots of Henman did not hold the same grace and interest as the Zinedine Zidane film, but the live score was an engrossing series of short pieces of varying moods.