Lord love a duck, what have we here? A show that lasts almost two and a half hours without an interval. A puppet show at that. And it all takes place at the end of the universe: Turnip Corner, Alberta, Canada. Here nice, homely old biddy Edna is eking out an existence "in the pit of eternal debt" with the help of her quilting and her affection for the late Princess of Wales. It doesn't sound promising at all.
There you would be wrong, because this everyday story of families, Aids, vampires, the second coming and motherly affection on the prairie from the puppeteer Ronnie Burkett is a masterpiece. It is a remarkable mixture of the gothic and the homespun, the camp and the heartfelt, the outrageous, the acidly funny and the quietly touching. It nuzzles at your heart and takes a great big bite out of it.
Edna is quietly quilting one day when she pricks her finger and the blood seeps into the material, making a face. Her friend thinks it might be Elvis, but Edna knows it is the face of Christ. So is born the shroud of Turnip Corner.
Its creation coincides with the homecoming of Edna's adopted son, Eden, and the arrival in town of Esme Massengill, a Hollywood has-been. Eden believes the film star to be his birth mother, but she has other plans for him. There is plenty at stake here, and Burkett's story clots together very nicely as it examines prejudice, pain, rage, disappointment, the inadequacies of God and the way blood is not necessarily thicker than the other ties that bind people together, such as love.
Burkett manipulates and provides all the voices for his tiny detailed marionettes. This is a miracle in itself. But it is not just the skill you marvel at - it is the sheer humanity of a show into which Burkett seems to have poured his whole being, and that celebrates the quiet and quite extraordinary lives of ordinary people like Edna.
Until Saturday. Box office: 01273 709709. Then tours to Manchester and Glasgow.
