Linbury Studio, London
Aletta Collins's family dance show comes with impressive musical credentials. It's not only the first British stage production of Kurt Weill's 1922 score Magical Night, it's also the first production of that score since it was rediscovered in 2005. Yet what's exciting for music historians isn't automatically exciting for a theatre full of small children. Weill's 60-minute score contains slightly too much music for Collins's update of the story, about toys who come to life and rescue their owners, Megan and Jason, from the clutches of a wicked witch. And there's a section early on, in which the Pink Fairy (Yvette Bonner) sings a long prologue, when you fear for the whole venture. With Bonner's slightly reedy voice emphasising certain acid dissonances in the score, it feels like German modernism meeting Toy Story – and not in a good way.
But the rest of the music is quirkily melodic and Collins, along with her clever design team and cast, hold the attention of their young audience with sweetness and flair. The handling of scale is masterly. Within the deliberately cramped setting of the children's bedroom, the magically grown toys become both comic and threatening, as they clamber over bunkbeds, and ransack shelves and drawers. The costumes and choreography for each are pitch-perfect: from the pucker-mouthed, roly-poly baby doll, to the violently gymnastic action girl and the cavorting, chaotic monkey.
Especially captivating is the detailing of the witch. Summoned into existence by one of Megan's drawings, her arms and legs are covered with felt-tip scrawls, and she's unable to smile until Megan has drawn her a proper mouth. Then she turns scary, her purple lips quivering with Hannibal Lecter-style anticipation at the prospect of "boy and apple pie". This triggers an avalanche of shrieks and giggles.