Aesop's Fables

Norwich Playhouse

Children's writer Michael Morpurgo is no stranger to the performing arts - his Why the Whales Came was adapted for the screen in 1988 with Paul Scofield starring, and many are his forays into television and radio.

Now the grandfather of six plans to take the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm with a new version of Aesop's Fables.

But you don't have to go all the way to Scotland to see it: you can stay right here in Norwich and simply toddle down to the Playhouse.

And very watchable it is, too.

Three actors, a couple of ladders, a wheelbarrow and a bag star in what proves to be a beautifully crafted piece of children's storytelling. We begin with the tale of the son who cried wolf featuring a flock of balloons that baa about the stage, proceed to the tale of the miller, his son and the donkey, in which the wheelbarrow becomes the ill-fated beast, and end with the hare and tortoise racing round the audience with plenty of banter.

A treat.