Kneehigh’s production of Hansel And Gretel is full of eccentric playfulness and merry grotesquerie, in which Hansel is portrayed as bookish, Gretel is a bit of an inventor who comes up with a chicken feeding device and a mouse-flattening contraption, and the wicked cannibal witch comes with a freedom-song singing Bolivian condor.

Hansel and Gretel also includes lively original music by yodelling musicians in lederhosen and Tyrolean hats, rough poetry, some rather unlucky rabbits and chickens and the most ingenious Heath Robinson-like contraptions of levers, pulleys and swings designed by renowned automatarian Rob Higgs.

The traps and cages, dark forests and darker secrets are all staged in a spooky adventure playground set on a sloping egg-like stage under a steel scaffolding structure.

A visual and soulful feast for all the family, this production of Hansel And Gretel has all the ingredients of classic Kneehigh storytelling.