Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

This new adaption of Charles Kingsley's classic tale is billed as suitable for five-year-olds upwards with a vivid imagination.

I would not agree and would liken it to watching your teachers performing a show and you not being sure whether to sit still or give a ripple of light laughter.

This is a sit, watch and listen show and its humour is deep as are the morals of good versus evil.

The Northern Broadsides actor/musicians were great performers but I felt it was all aimed way above the heads of the many children in the audience.

Perhaps the cast felt the most comfortable with it all.

There is nothing flash about this production and it is aimed to make you think and concentrate.

The second half provided faster-moving action, with the good, in the form of Tom aka Hod (Adam Sunderland), ensuring the bad, Grimes aka Baldur (Andy Cresswell), got his comeuppance.