Hansel and Gretel – Rose Theatre, Kingston

Georgina White and Sylvie Varcoe in Hansel and Gretel at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. Picture: Mark Douet

Hansel and Gretel continues at the Rose Theatre, Kingston until 6 January 2019.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Forget all those predictable pantos, especially those with smutty innuendo that you just hope and pray your children/grandchildren won’t understand and get yourselves down to Kingston for this brilliant adaptation of one of the most enduring fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. The Rose Theatre’s family Christmas show is not just a winner, it’s a masterpiece.

The Irish know all about fairytales and writer Ciaran McConville and composer Eamonn O’Dwyer will have had a field day with the Grimms, those 19th-century German siblings who at the last count had cast their spell on 211 tales.

Not all of the tales were meant for children and they did not shrink from violence either, nor were they much into happy endings. McConville has come up with a revise that’s better suited to today.

Hansel and Gretel was one of their early ones from the Grimms’ first book of 86 in 1812 and McConville has cunningly reworked the story to bring in famous characters from other Grimm fables such as Rapunzel, Snow White, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella as well as one from left field – an Italian-speaking Pinocchio.

And he’s changed the downbeat ending to bring the show to a stunning ‘Happy Ever After’ finale with lots of kissing, hugging and dancing, wonderfully directed by Rosie Jones and choreographed by Aimee Leigh.

This is far from being the first collaboration by McConville and O’Dwyer who were responsible for last year’s Christmas show, Alice in Winterland, and before that The Wind in the Willows and A Christmas Carol.

But by some way it is their best, not least because of the quite magnificent set which starts with a giant book opening into the little town of Freiburg where a popular but shady mayor rules the roost with his surly enforcer Otto the Huntsman.

Then we’re taken into the dark and forbidding forest with blackbirds flitting hither and thither by inspired set designer Adam Wiltshire and illustrator Lucie Arnoux. What fun they must have had with the edible House of Sweets where Circe The Witch (the splendidly costumed Georgina White) waits to ensnare the unwary.

In a new segment, McConville has invented the fairy sanctuary Grub which shelters a disparate band of refugees with axes to grind. Hansel and Gretel find solace in this magical world when they leave home and, in the end, the power of love and belief conquers greed and hatred, just the right message at this festive time.

White is one of a professional cast of five (plus the recorded voice of Jane Horrocks as the Magic Mirror) – Vanessa Fisher, Elliot Fitzpatrick, JJ Henry and Devon Black also perfect – who work with two alternating casts of 21 talented Rose Youth Theatre members, the Orange Team and the Green Team.

The Greens were on duty at Friday’s press night, so it was Oliver Smith we saw as the truculent Hansel and Sylvie Varcoe as the practical Gretel. They had so much to learn and truly did themselves proud, as did they all. Doubtless, Billy Rilot and Amelie Abbott, who take the roles when the Orange Team strutted their stuff, are every bit as good.

It would be stretching it to call Hansel and Gretel a musical, more a play with a few songs. Otto had a good one early on and the Witch later, both well rendered by Fitzpatrick and White, but it was ‘Happy Ever After’ with the entire cast on stage that the packed young audience could sing along with and take home.

Maybe O’Dwyer, who has long been a clever lyricist and songwriter, could come up with one more as it would improve Act II. This two-hour show could easily take it.

But the whole thing is a feast for the eye. Costume designer Peter Todd has come with some beauties for the wolves and the misunderstood brown bear to wear and director Jones keeps up a fierce pace using the whole auditorium to fine effect.

As my 11-year-old grand-daughter said on the way out: “That’s the best show you have taken us to yet, grandpa.” Enough said. Do get along before the month run ends on 6 January.

Jeremy Chapman