This enchanting festive production begins with an ugly and bedraggled duckling alone on stage. Ducks and quacking are a bit of a theme in Mike Kenny's imaginative play about the life and stories of Hans Christian Andersen for six to 12-year-olds.
Weaving together the biography and tales is an ambitious project, but the result is a balanced and engaging piece of theatre. Storytelling at its simplest is at the heart of the show, and it uses music, dance, puppetry, singing and all manner of silliness to draw in its young audience.
It helps to have well-loved stories such as The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor's New Clothes to work with, but the actors embellish these and the details of Andersen's grim early life with much wit and warmth. They bring a tremendous energy to the production and successfully create worlds within worlds to tell Andersen's story through his own fiction.
The second act focuses more on the writer's transition from the bleak dysfunction of his upbringing to the beginnings of success. This is where the ugly duckling takes centre stage once more, and there is plenty of material about not fitting in. "You're a bit of a monstrosity," one bullying duck tells the duckling.
When the transformation to a swan happens, the songs get a bit mushy ("If you are drawn to the sky, one day you'll spread your wings and fly") but the young audience are spellbound. As the school parties board the coaches home, there is a lot of playful quacking to be heard.
· Until January 6. Box office: 029-2064 6900.
