Laurence Boswell has had a number of opportunities to get his version of Beauty and the Beast just right - first at the Young Vic last century, then in 2003 at this address. Reworked since last year, it now leaps jauntily off the stage, full of confidence and magic. It may not be perfect - particularly in a second half that spoils the purity of the storytelling with too much padding - but its mixture of glee, spite, style and wistful romanticism is a winner.
From the moment the black-clad chorus don their dark glasses, you know that what you are going to see will have a distinct vision and aesthetic. The opening scenes, performed as a moving black-and-white family photo, are terrific, the smiling faces of the people in the portrait gradually revealing the dysfunction and jealousies that lurk beneath.
What follows is always inventive, from the physical work that re-creates great journeys on a bare stage to the humour: Beauty's family, forced by their reduced circumstances to move to the country, are greeted by a sea of brown mud.
This is one of those rare Christmas shows where you don't actually need a child in tow to enjoy it (although you are welcome to borrow any of mine any time if you feel you really need one). There is something for everyone: a truly terrifying beast who descends vertical walls with the ease of Spider-Man, fart jokes (very good for small boys in the six to 10 age range), a couple of brilliantly observed teenage wannabes as Beauty's horrid sisters, sparkly dresses (for all the princesses in the audience), some very funny robot servants and a sense that happiness is genuinely at stake here. Maybe not perfect, but very rosy indeed.
· Until January 16. Box office: 0870 6091110.
