Charm has its place in the theatre, but there are a number of young companies around at present - working particularly in the visual and physical theatre fields - who seem to feel charm harnessed to comedy is enough. It seldom is, and so it proves here in this variation on Don Quixote from Tell Tale Hearts, a company with wit, invention and oodles of charm. All they need to add to the recipe now is real substance.
Wendy Williams is the archetypal, glasses-wearing, sensibly dressed librarian behind whose dull exterior lurks a passionately beating heart and a fevered mind fuelled by tales of romance and chivalry. She is researching Cervantes's story with her assistant Consuelo, a trusty Sancho Panza type who claims to be the great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter of a friend who was the friend of the cousin of the real Sancho Panza.
Donkey Haughty celebrates the imagination, and the fact that tilting at windmills has its place in our drab lives, with considerable style. There is effective use of puppets and perspective with the library stairs, and some clever lighting effects and physical comedy. The hour is always entertaining, but the show needs more room to breathe and more confidence that an audience won't get up and leave if the gags don't come fast and furious. You get the feeling the company is afraid of being serious, a pity because the strand about following a dream, however ridiculous, is underdeveloped.
There is no such problem in the relationship between performers Isabel Caballero and Natasha Holmes, who play off each other beautifully. With some reworking this could be a show to treasure. I hope it happens, but as they say in Consuelo's village: "In 100 years we'll all be bald."
· Until December 8. Box office: 020-7223 2223
