They do it with strings, and they do it quite beautifully. Form and content are perfectly married in this puppet version of Shakespeare's erotic love poem, created with the combined expertise of the Little Angel Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In a miniature theatre of burnished gold, Jacobean masque meets Japanese bunraku puppetry as the tale of Venus's love for Adonis is played out to its tragic conclusion. Fluttering doves pull a chariot through the air; two snorting steeds toss their heads; death's bony fingers cradle the wanton Venus, a girl who is a bit of a handful in more ways than one.
There is not a wooden performance in Greg Doran's production, which negotiates a course between the erotic and the satirical with aplomb. Harriet Walter's narration combines passion with dispassion, so that she often sounds as if she is raising one eyebrow behind the scenes.
It is certainly X-rated stuff, giddily seductive and deliciously moist as the coupling Venus and Adonis rise into the air in ecstasy. Directors of puppetry Steve Tiplady and Lyndie Wright ensure that the hour is both sexy and curiously sweet, without ever succumbing to cuteness. In fact, there is absolutely nothing cute about the emotions on display, which are wild and untrammelled in both lust and grief.
Simon Davies' guitar accompaniment is a mixture of the jaunty and the lyrical. You leave the theatre charmed, and with a genuine sense of wonder.
Until April 21. Box office: 020-7226 1787.
