Where's Stuart Paterson when you need him? For over a decade the playwright has dominated the Christmas show market, delivering story-centred scripts to theatres that want some seasonal jollity but find full-blown pantomimes too crass. This year his plays are nowhere to be seen. Change is essential for any artform, but it's hard not to yearn for the old Paterson magic when you see Phil Porter's treatment of Hansel and Gretel.
For all its many strengths, the show can't decide if it's a panto or a play, and ends up selling both genres short. As a panto, it's not funny or abrasive enough. As plot-driven drama, it undercuts itself and stops us truly caring for the plight of Hansel and Gretel as they're lured into the dark heart of the forest by the evil witch and her confectionery cottage.
This is a shame because, moment to moment, Dominic Hill's production, like the script itself, is very enjoyable. In Kim Gerard's Gretel and Cameron Mowat's Hansel there's a smart inversion of tradition, with her being wise, tolerant and witty and him being splendidly gormless. You want them to defeat Ann Louise Ross's witch, who - blind, bald and white-faced - looks like something out of a sinister Samuel Beckett play. But the jokes, although funny, diminish the urgency of the children's plight, giving their defeat of the witch little sense of liberation.
Even so, there's much to enjoy, from Ivan Scott's jolly set of songs to the posse of Asbo bats, but there's a schism at the heart of the play. It's summed up by the song in which Gretel worries about dying in one line, only to get a laugh for asking: "Why did mum choke on that thingamajig?"
· Until January 6. Box office: 01382 223530.
