Perô

With a script and score by the gloriously witty Guus Ponsioen, Michel Tournier's deep little story of a lovelorn baker's moonlit travails proves a wicked romantic comedy in an hour-long adaptation from Holland's Speeltheater. Perô the baker and Columbina the laundress – moonfaced puppets all in white – live side by side in narrow cottages in the village of Fanghetto. Manipulating them, the flesh-and-blood performers Inez de Bruijn and Tim Velraeds are a feisty pair, who find each other irresistible while having their puppet character's interests at heart. Overseeing all of this is another mismatched couple – the sun (Annemarie Maas) and the moon (Ponsioen), who sit at pianos, sing and fling insults at each other. From these three viewpoints the romance takes shape. Swept along on rollicking visual gags and clever comic songs, doughy Perô rises from zero to hero in this Dutch theatre company's priceless UK debut. Age 6+.