At least there is one old-age pensioner who isn't afraid of freezing this winter. Every time the legendary magician unleashes his supernatural powers in Stephen Edwards' production a searing ring of flame shoots from the stage.
At times it is like watching a drama in a bread oven. And as the temperature continues to rise, Merlin's quest to aid the Winter King appears to be a pretty extravagant way to spend the winter fuel allowance.
Edwards and fellow artistic director Karen Louise Hebden (who supplies the script) go for broke by throwing everything at this spectacular family entertainment. Yet their general policy seems to be that if a thing's worth doing, it's worth over-doing. The first time the stage cleaves and Excalibur rises from the misty depths, it is quite impressive. The third or fourth time round you begin to feel for the sub-stage technicians, who have certainly earned their Christmas bonuses this year.
But there has to be a level of visual distraction to wrest attention from the nakedness of the plot, which can basically be summed up in a couple of lines: grizzled wizard inserts sword in stone, gangly stripling pulls it out. The rest is really so much verbiage in which a bunch of chieftains hold war councils to discuss what to do about the Saxons.
Fortunately Ben Roberts' Merlin carries the show by his sheer crotchety, irascible presence alone. As a figure reputed to live backwards through time he variously appears as a grumbling crone bundled in rabbit skins; or as a bald, meaty warrior with a scar running along his cranium, as if the two halves have been zipped together.
The Playhouse deserves praise for its technical ambition, but thanks to the gas jets buried in the floor, this incendiary take on an ancient legend tends to blow hot and cold.
· Until January 22. Box office: 01332 363275.
