Before there’s any action on the stage, the young audience are asked to get out of their seats and search for the Little Angel cat – an ‘unwelcome’ interloper in this Cinderella-inspired puppet production set in Mousetown.
It’s a canny piece of staging that gets the kids invested from the get-go, and their engagement in the show doesn’t wane.
The set is simple but the exquisitely carved and nattily outfitted marionettes bring the fairytale to life with pumpkinloads of personality. Andrea Sadler and Roger Lade imbue Lyndie Wright’s wooden puppets with remarkably subtle gestures, and voice them warmly. The target crowd of three-to eight-year-olds whoop and exclaim in delight (the four-year-old sitting behind me emitted a steady stream of awestruck ‘wow!’s), while the swift pacing and a sprinkling of deliberately targeted jokes keeps the adults on side.
The show centres on a few key scenes from the familiar story. The Prince’s birthday party is a colourful affair complete with waltzing mice and a deft circus troupe that includes, in a brilliant touch, a lion operated by puppet puppeteers.
Hiding from the shrill Ugly Sisters – sent by their social-climbing mother Mrs Applecrumb – the Prince runs into good-hearted Cinders. She’s at the palace to surreptitiously fix her clockmaker father’s faltering timepieces (he can’t afford the quality cogs) and the narrative moves towards its pleasing resolution with plenty of pep.
Some panto-lite call-and-response, sparingly deployed, comes at just the right points to keep the energy up. It’s a winning show from a miniature theatre that radiates charm.
Find more Christmas theatre shows for kids