Reviews

TASTY TALE

Four stars

"Delicious moments...fashioned into a rhyming feast"

TIME OUT

HOOD IN THE WOOD

THE GUARDIAN: Four stars

Noel Greig's pungent retelling of Little Red Riding Hood takes you deep into the woods and snares you in the thickets of the imagination. It gets the balance of nasty and nice, scary and safe, just right.

This is a show about fear and stereotyping, the path we all have to take to get through the woods and how sometimes we have to find the wild side of our nature in order to survive. Its final images owe something to the seductive hairiness of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber - not bad for a show aimed at seven- to 11-year-olds.

Greig and the director, David Johnston, constantly subvert expectations in a show where the spit and poetry of the writing is cleverly given extra layers by Lewis Gibson's live music and sound accompaniment.

Here, the tamed, urban world is at odds with nature, and it only gradually emerges why Little Hood's mother is an uptight obsessive-compulsive, estranged from her wild, wandering mother who lives far away in the woods.

Played out on a bare stage with just four blood-red chairs, this simple piece of storytelling becomes emotionally, psychologically and theatrically sophisticated, largely due to Gibson's sound-effects contributions. He offers everything from the deadening tick-tock of Little Hood's home to the bubbling burps of the interior of the wolf's stomach, where, Jonah-like, Little Hood and Granny find themselves.

Gary Lagden gives a tour-de-force performance, playing mother, child, granny and wolf with verve; he has the trick of reaching out to the audience to both scare and settle them.

This is a first-rate piece of storytelling that will make children squeal with terrified delight and parents shiver with recognition

Until February 3.  Unicorn  Box office: 0207645 0560

"Gary singlehandedly produces a compelling cast...accompanied by Lewis and his battery of unorthodox instruments...an inspired piece of audience participation"

TIME OUT - 2006 Critics Choice

"An atmospheric, psychological retelling, with just the right amount of menace"

THE STAGE

THE FOX & THE LITTLE VIXEN

"the performances from all are superb"

DERBY EVENING TELEGRAPH

"The drama is gutsy and explosive and Lawrence's original is grippingly revitalised."

The Stage

FACE 2 FACE

“I really enjoyed the performance, I thought the masks themselves had a really unique look... great.”

CBBC Entertainment Development

"very absorbing, very funny"

The Stage