This is a modest enough debut from a new company, but one with sufficient energy, commitment and invention to inspire optimism for the future of Fourwall Productions. More pertinently, it's also perfectly good entertainment for the young 'uns.
Once it gets past Hansel and Gretel, its drab, static opening, and sheds its silly framing device of druidic mumbling and burning incense, Grimm Tales is an entertaining pastime for the grown-ups, too.
Most of the stories will be only vaguely familiar even to inveterate bedtime readers, so we're granted the enjoyment of discovery of weird folk such as Dummling, Ashputtel and Iron Hans - not to mention the donkey who, at the incantation "Shitzy-spitzy!", emits gold coins from the predictable orifices.
The cast of eight enjoyed it, too, even at the glorified dress rehearsal, in an empty cavern of a theatre, that I attended. The women seem to find the right sweet 'n' manic tone more readily than the men (who start to catch up when they're in drag), and Sandra Gildea gets to take her brand of scenery-chewing to literal extremes in her final star turn as a disingenuous goat.
If anything, these tales are insufficiently Grimm, with only the screams of Ashputtel's tormented wicked sisters breaking the mood of benign amusement.
Runs until Saturday, bookings on 01-8554673
