Departing from the general rule of great children's stories, Alan Ayckbourn's seasonal offering has a great beginning, a middle and another beginning. In his world, a fairy tale is never just a fairy tale, but a nightmare narrative loop in which the characters find themselves helpless pawns in a cyclical, cosmic plan, the arbiters of which operate on an incomprehensible higher plane. It's what might happen if Samuel Beckett had ever done children's parties.
Ayckbourn's journey to the dark side takes place in a dystopian neverland, where stock characters from children's fiction - wood-cutters, princesses, wicked stepmothers - are forced to enact fables according to the command of a sinister triumvirate of narrative autocrats boasting grisled demeanours and crusty black weeds. The commissariat comprises unreliable Uncle Erraticus (who spins a muddled yarn about Gretel and Hansel), narcoleptic Uncle Oblivious (responsible for an indeterminate tale about the Princess and the Thingummy) and, most sinisterly of all, steely Great-Aunt Repetitus (whose stories go round in circles). Our proletarian player-hero Fred has to smash this vicious circle and restore the dimly remembered days in which the players were free to make up their own tales.
You could interpret this as a utopian paradigm in which the hegemony of an obsolete regime is shown to crumble as a result of its inherent corruption. Or you could just say that it's a thumpingly good show for kids. As director, Ayckbourn keeps things moving at a sufficient lick to keep even the youngest members of the audience engrossed, while nurturing winning performances from a cast of familiar Stephen Joseph Theatre faces. Alison Pargeter exudes a fresh, slightly flustered innocence that has been utilised to great comedic effect, whether as a teenage tart's maid in last summer's Ayckbourn premiere, GamePlan, or as the pink party-frocked Goldilocks here. There are no weak links in the rest of the cast, and there are memorable contributions from Kevin, an automated singing tree. It is Christmas, after all.
· Until January 5. Box office: 01723 370541.
