When it comes to Christmas shows in Belfast, each of the four main venues now seems to have found its niche. In the case of the Arts Theatre, director-writer Peter Quigley operates on the basis that his audience knows what it likes and it likes what it knows.
And what it likes best of all is good, clean family fun, a familiar story told clearly and excellent value-for-money.
In tandem with musical director Kennedy Boyd, he has preserved all the elements of the traditional tale, while adding in a cannily chosen score of original music and contemporary pop songs, all of which get a unanimously ecstatic response from the moment the opening bars are played.
He has cast a pretty hero and heroine in Tryphena Mulford's Princess Beauty and Jason Heppenstall's Prince Leonardo de Capitall, a lispingly silly king and queen in Paddy Scully and Angela Harding, a gentle, graceful water fairy in Nuala Reilly's Hydro, a cheeky, streetwise clown in Packy Lee's Jester John, a wonderfully sardonic baddy in Paddy Jenkins's Pyro and a raucous, bandy-legged, gap-toothed dame in Nicholas Grennell's Nurse Amanda Hugankiss.
It all comes gift wrapped, as usual, in Caroline McCulloch's inventive set and costumes and adds up to everything a family treat for Christmas should be.
Sleeping Beauty runs at the Arts Theatre until January 23rd.
Box office tel: 01232 316900
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