Occasionally, a production comes along and shakes your preconceived ideas about staging and writing a play right down to the very foundations. One such play currently in Liverpool is Kneehigh Theatre’s re-working of the children’s classic Hansel and Gretel.

The stage was set for a magical night of theatre and the cast and support did not let the excited audience down. From the very young whose innocent laughter filled every part of the theatre to the parents and older patrons who were just as enthralled by the use of the set and the characterization of the family, (this time without the evil step mother figure).

The main premise of the story has stayed the same but somehow the writer Carl Grose has managed to turn it into a mix of the wonderfully absurd, (one of the best uses of puppet rabbits since Monty Python and The Holy Grail) and the dark humour that has been a mainstay of children’s story telling.

The cast include Craig Johnson as the fact ridden Hansel, (who if he became any more clever he’d become daft) the wonderful Joanna Holden as his “identical twin” Gretel and the excellent Giles King as both the guilt ridden mother and the Shakespeare obsessed bird “Hamlet”.

Carl Grose not only writes the play but acts his socks off as both the father who teaches his son about the joys of ferrets down your trousers but as one of the most evil looking witches seen on stage. I will never be able to look at a night gown in the same way again.

The stage and props are also quite important in this production and to be able to see the manner in which the mouse and the witch meet their end is worth the wait.

The company itself has been going for 25 years and continues to impress and delight its audiences up and down the country. The team deserve praise for being fresh, novel and downright superb in their particular way of getting a story across.

A fun evening, for which the whole family will enjoy.

Ian D. Hall