Even by the venue's own exemplary standards, the Young Vic's Christmas show is outstanding. Written and directed by Rufus Norris, it mixes the mythic and the macabre in a manner that recalls Sondheim's Into the Woods more strongly than the Petipa-Tchaikovsky ballet, with its straightforward struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
Drawing on the Perrault fairy tale, Norris plays fascinating variations on the legend. The key figure in his version is Goody, a female Puck with a weird thatch of bird's-nest hair and a disconcerting habit of farting every time she does a spot of magic.
As played by the remarkable Helena Lymbery, Goody is a figure of rustic ambivalence. Piqued at not being invited to the christening of the infant Beauty, she puts the familiar narcoleptic curse on her. Remorsefully, she then tries to prevent the teenage heroine from pricking her finger on a spindle. Finally, having seen her rescued by a prince who is also a bit of a prick, Goody protects Danielle King's Beauty from her ogress mother-in-law, a baby-eater.
What makes the show so dazzling is Norris's ability to appeal to children and adults alike. Kids around me seemed entranced, as I was, by the unfolding narrative, particularly the Grimmly sinister second act.
The show is also eclectically allusive. There is something deeply Shakespearean about Goody and also about the choric refrain that "all that dies must be reborn". The rotating heads poking out of the boards of Katrina Lindsay's wonderfully ingenious drum-like set reminded me of a famous shot from Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico. And when Daniel Cerqueira's Ogress unapologetically cried, "I am what I am", I assumed he was deliberately quoting from La Cage aux Folles.
Norris never stoops to conquer; he simply assumes that theatre can work on any number of levels simultaneously. His show is as funny as it is occasionally frightening. James Loye's countryfied Prince is a proper Charlie, who at one point leads the cast in a preposterous, high-stepping gallop. And when, after an absence of several years, he returns home with a princess and two children, his mother observes with understandable tartness: "You've been a long time hunting, my son."
Richard Chew's music adds to the sense of pleasurable sophistication by incorporating mock-medieval Latin chants with catchier songs from Hazel Holder's bumptious minstrel. That in itself speaks, and sings, volumes about a production that is as socially and theatrically inclusive as anyone could wish.
· Until January 25. Box office: 020-7928 6363.
