It's that time in the theatrical calendar when fairies are out in force, gathered around Sleeping Beauty's cradle or gadding about with Peter Pan. Yet there are very few sprites on stage of a proper, spiritual lineage - the ancient devas, sylphs and undines who wouldn't be seen dead in a panto.
Neil Duffield's Christmas offering is more Celtic Twilight than Cinderella: a retelling of the legend of Oisin and his adventures in the "otherworld" of Tir na n'og. It's a show full of druids, daemons and dun-coloured breeches - the kind of thing you see every year in the healing field at Glastonbury, in other words.
Lest all this seem a mite esoteric for the little ones, Duffield includes an identifiable figure in the person of Aideen, a likable modern teenager from a single-parent family: her father is a boatman and her mother is a lake. (How many children of feckless hippie unions have been fobbed off with that explanation, I wonder?)
Tapping into her mysterious ability to commune with stones, Aideen crosses over to Tir na n'og and falls head over heels for Oisin, a handsome warrior 800 years her senior. Unfortunately, he is in thrall to a spell cast by the evil Morrigan, but sensible Aideen uses her watery powers to ensure it all comes out in the wash.
As the young heroine, Pam Jolley is a delight: inquisitive, ethereal yet thoroughly down to earth. Christopher Dickins's Oisin cuts a dash, though he never seems quite certain what to do with his sword, while Ruth Dawes is very good value as a flinty Welsh pebble.
Eileen Murphy's production mixes fine ensemble work, persuasive animal puppetry and old-fashioned, raw theatrical imagination. As a pagan alternative to pantomime, this guarantees a magically cool yule.
· Until January 1. Box office: 01524 598500.
