Cross-dressing, transformations, an audience singalong, a live rabbit and a villainous slapstick Bonnie-and-Clyde-style comedy double act. You might think that you had mistakenly wandered into a pantomime - but it's just an everyday show from the wondrous Kneehigh, the company that has put the soul back into storytelling in the theatre.
All Kneehigh shows are a bit of a pantomime, and this artful confection is more panto than most. There are some lovely touches: the theatre is arranged with informal seating around two linked circular stages, and it even smells delicious, with the lingering aroma of oranges and cinnamon.
This giddy family show is a raggle-taggle of borrowings - including loans from Grimm, Basile and Italo Calvino - and its masterstroke is to find a good psychological reason for Rapunzel's imprisonment in the tower. Here she is not a promised child, but an abandoned baby discovered by the local wise woman, who turns witchy when she realises that the teenage Rapunzel is growing up fast and may soon leave her. "Why are you keeping me in this tower?" asks the despairing Rapunzel. "Because I love you," is the cry. Excessive mother love and the urge to keep children cocooned distorts and warps the soul, turning good to bad.
It is not all perfection. The first half is too slow to take a grip; Annie Siddons' script could do with a little more poetry; and the second half is a bit like an overfilled pie crust. But the evening has real warmth and moments of abandon. The lovers' first meeting captures the giggling insanity of falling in love when everything uttered by the object of your affection, however inane, seems fascinating. And the cast never hold back for a moment, with Paul Hunter making one of the best exits in stage history, pursued not by a bear but by the fear that he's been taken over by a minor character.
· Until January 14. Box office: 020 7223 2223.
