Solomon, a mathematical prodigy, Mary the scary punk teenager and their forgetful Gran are surviving, along with Zipper the dog and a baby called Baby (naturally), in the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophe that claimed the children's parents. Even the family bed tilts at a doom-laden angle. So when Gran suggests a nice day out, it is the graveyard that is the obvious destination.
Like a wild theatrical version of that nursery favourite We're Going on a Bear Hunt, the family face outsize hornets, mad bulls and interfering bureaucrats on a journey in which the baby keeps going awol and the family always imagine that the worst has befallen the child.
Bryony Lavery's giggling, gurgling, things-that-go-bump-in the-night show is a very clever mix of the silly and the serious. Intended for the over-sixes, it is about the simple pleasures of scaring yourself silly and confronting your fears, and it is also a sharp-eyed critique of a world that seems intent on turning us into quivering jellies so terrified by newspaper headlines that warn of bird flu pandemics, terrorist attacks, earthquakes and the dangers of taking a walk that we become impotent and lose all control over our own lives.
If that sounds heavy, I can tell you I haven't laughed in the theatre so much for years. This show will appeal, I'd suggest, to six-year-olds who like nappy and pooh jokes but also to university professors intent on dissecting the politics of fear. I reckon it would tickle the fancy of my granny and yours, too, even though the grandma in the story is losing both the plot and her memory. This is that rare children's show that doesn't shirk the scary things in life, including death.
Rebecca Gatward's production is full of verve, humour and invention and the cast are a pleasure, particularly Miltos Yerolemou, who is so scene-stealing as the outsize baby in a romper suit that I fear he will never work again outside children's theatre.
· Until May 14. Box office: 08700 534534.
