After several scary seasonal shows, the Young Vic's latest offering is all sweetness and light. David Almond's adaptation of his bestselling novel deals with two Tyneside children awakening to the miracle of existence; and, while imaginatively staged and designed by Trevor Nunn and John Napier, it is marred only by occasional touches of macrobiotic earnestness.
Almond's story revolves around the discovery by the boy Michael of a gaunt, withered derelict lurking in the family garage. Mixing an insatiable desire for brown ale and Chinese food with a feathered growth sprouting from his back, this tetchy tramp is both mouldy and metaphysical. And, aided by his precocious neighbour Mina, Michael rescues the eponymous spectre only to find he has been trafficking with the otherworldly.
The influences on Almond are obvious: Blake, Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire and Persephone resurrection myths. But, although I jib slightly at the supernatural Skellig's curative powers and the sentimental conclusion, the story has legs as well as wings. What Nunn does particularly well is allow magical moments to grow out of collaborative storytelling techniques: a group of arthritic elders do a zimmer-frame shimmy in a manner reminiscent of The Producers and even better is the scene where tawny owls, suspended on the end of arching poles, hover menacingly over the audience.
David Threlfall lends the angelic Skellig his own brand of beaky strangeness and there is nice work from Kevin Wathen as the chunky Michael, and Akiya Henry as the supportive Mina.
It all makes up for a moderately exciting, morally purifying evening confirming Blake's admonition to cherish pity "lest you drive an angel from your door."
· Until January 31. Box office: 020-7928 6363.
