Kid's Christmas: Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf review at the Gaiety

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf ****
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not Little Red Riding Hood, anyway. She's too busy singing her way through the woods to realise she has taken a wrong turn and is strolling dangerously close to the lupine lair of the most dastardly nemesis in fairy tales. But Darryn Crosbie, the long-serving writer and director of the Gaiety panto, isn't content to limit himself to a single piece of source material. That would be too easy, and not as much fun. Following the lead of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, miscellaneous characters from nursery rhymes and children's fables are employed as guardians of Little Red (Hayley Jo Murphy). There are a few contemporary characters too, most notably Granny McGregor (Joe Conlon, in fine Dame form), a prize-fighting septuagenarian, who manages to escape from the wolf (Nicholas Grennell, who brings the right balance of mischief and menace) to come to Little Red's rescue. Musical director Peter Beckett keeps things interesting by blending the main musical themes of Sondheim's Into the Woods score with pop songs, although the performers, particularly the leads, are much more comfortable with the contemporary register. The sets by Ciara Cramer use digital projection to provide polish, while Pauline McCaul's terrific costumes peak in the hot-pink confection donned by the Three Little Pigs (the Porkscratchians). Great fun for all ages.

• Until Jan 24