It is a brave company that takes on the Courtyard in winter. Despite the presence of a large, noisily active heater, it's so cold in this tiny King's Cross theatre that no one in the audience dares take off their coat. Bright Choice theatre company, however, has spirit to spare, and its daft musical is sufficiently entertaining to stop anyone sneaking home in the interval.
Written by John Finnemore, Told You So is a winningly irreverent amalgam of various fables by Aesop that undermines their moralising at every point. The animal characters start the evening smug, narcissistic and arrogant, and end it... smug, narcissistic and arrogant. There is an oily narrator (played by Finnemore himself), but his control over the plot is minimal, and his self-righteous attempts to bully the animals into following his advice are deservedly derided.
The writing is richest in the amusing collision of The Boy Who Cried Wolf with The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Here, the wolf is taught to baa by a black sheep who demands "grass - genuine pasture" in payment; the boy, Herbert, cries "big fat hairy Rolf"; and the pair ultimately collaborate to allow the wolf to steal Herbert's father's sheep while Herbert elopes with the combine harvester. Understandably, the narrator is furious at this wanton destruction of his "nice moral fable to terrorise children" - but with its vision of vindictive mutual self-aggrandisement, maybe Finnemore's version isn't without a moral of its own.
At over two hours, the show is far too long, and the quality of the songs is so uneven that several feel unnecessary. Composer Joseph Craig writes a fine pastiche of overwrought balladry and thigh-slapping line-dancing Texan country; when it comes to rap, however, his touch is far less sure.
But the ensemble cast in Matt Applewhite's sprightly production are always engaging, and any time your attention threatens to wander, it is grabbed by a facetious, surreal detail: Zeus shaking a tambourine; the Lion requesting a note from the pianist and getting a ripple of 40; the announcement that "the entire population of Islington began life as squid".
There's even a helpful overarching moral: think twice before you say I told you so.
· Until January 19. Box office: 020-7833 0876.
