There is one glorious scene of clowning in Jonathan Church's production of Roald Dahl's brilliantly nasty story about the dastardly attempts of the world's witches to kill all the children of England.
The young hero and his companion, Bruno, have been turned into mice by the evil grand high witch. The boy is desperate to get to his grandmother's hotel room to alert her to the witches' wicked plans, only mice are very small and the steps are very high. For a good five minutes the boy-mice attempt to negotiate the steps in a piece of silent clowning that really is the cat's whiskers.
Elsewhere, while Dahl's deliciously evil, child-centric humour always raises a laugh, this evening feels pretty thin, even though it is only 100 minutes long, including a 20-minute interval. The lack of narrative backbone is quickly apparent even though Church has plenty of hi-tech resources, including film, to throw at the show.
The distracting telescope design and use of film only heighten the feeling that there's not much of substance here. I recall seeing David Wood's adaptation in a staging a few years back. It was much more old-fashioned but it solved the little-and-large problem of mouse and human perspective in simpler and yet more ingeniously theatrical ways.
The big set-piece scenes - the witches' meeting in the ballroom and their final come-uppance in the dining room - cause great delight, and would cause more if the grand high witch's mask didn't make so much of what she says hard to hear. She is not alone: Granny swallows her lines too. If you sit at the sides, you can spot the trickery too easily. There is fun to be had, but not as much fun as there could and should be.
· Until January 8. Box office: 0121-236 4455
