Snow Child
Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds/Touring
4 stars

TUTTI Frutti has established a strong reputation for charming, creative theatre for young children and Emma Reeves’s latest script for the company, an adaptation of the Russian folk tale Snow Child, in no way disappoints.

On the edge of a forest village, where upturned brooms double as trees and model houses become lanterns, a childless couple build a girl out of snow.

She comes alive, fulfilling their dream, but with her mother being “a blizzard and her father the frost,” they soon learn that parenthood isn’t as easy as they’d imagined.

As both sides struggle with the compromises that are necessary to make a happy family home, the Snow Child (Mei Mac) encounters a grizzly bear, is forced to socialise with “perfect” children and overcomes difficulties with her best friend the fox — all played by Paula James and Mark Pearce.

Acted with a convincing mix of assertiveness and childlike innocence, Mac is an appealing conduit for the play’s traditional values, also forged through Oliver Birch’s simple and humorous songs, sung live, and the caution: “Other children eat up all their dinner even if it’s burnt!”

The real joy of Reeves’s script, though, is that the moral about accepting difference is never allowed to dominate.

Instead the audience, young and old alike, take away a gently magical tale that — with its projected snowflakes and twinkling lights — is an ideal alternative to the bigger budget festive fare.

Tours until March 5, details: tutti-frutti.org.uk

Susan Darlington