"Children must lead big lives," suggests the governess, Miss Minton, in Eva Ibbotson's wonderful novel about orphan Maia who, in 1910, is sent from London to Brazil to stay with distant cousins who live on the Amazon and run a rubber plantation. Children also deserve big theatre and they get it here in Carl Miller's adaptation and Rosamunde Hutt's production.
This extraordinary and exhilarating show is as good as Shared Experience's adult productions at their best, and proves the transposition of classic children's books from page to stage can escape both the literal and literary. This is a show of many colours that is as beautiful and shimmering as the butterflies that haunt the river's banks.
Ibbotson's novel is not without its narrative complications, but smooths the way for this telling of Cinderella in Brazil, offering a simple directness and room for the children to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.
Miller has fun with it too, transforming the ghastly Carter twins into a pair of pantomime ugly sisters and allowing the themes to emerge organically as Miss Minton learns to lose her corset, Mrs Carter tries fruitlessly to keep the "otherness" of the jungle at bay with her mania for disinfectant, and Maia and her friends discover that if you want something enough you must make hard choices. It is a wonderful show and it is so simply and gloriously staged by Hutt that, like Maia, you are transported from cold, grey London into the beating heart of the Amazon.
· Until March 25. Box office: 08700 534534. Then touring
