A Magic production

The consoling power of music is a running theme in this year's batch of Christmas shows. Coram Boy at the National uses a soaring Handel chorus, while Ratcatcher at Battersea Arts Centre tells of a town that denounces music in grief over its dead children, before slowly learning to embrace it again.

Now comes Ben Hopkins and David Farr's The Magic Carpet, an Arabian adventure in which a talented composer loses his ability to play and, in a fit of fury, turns into a demonic sorcerer intent on banning music from the world with the help of a magic lamp.

It's all too easy for this sort of seasonal show to lapse into whimsy but Farr gives his bold, pacy production a wonderful vitality and clarity. A colourful, uncluttered set and pounding polyrhythmic music provide a vivid backdrop to his story of young thieves Miloshin and Zhivta. Enemies at first, the pair, through their quest to retrieve the magic lamp and so save melody and song, learn to love instead.

Hopkins's story is strong on the idea of the transformative power of love: it is this, rather than courage and skill, that ultimately saves the day. Yet Farr neatly balances this with a sophisticated, dry humour that allows for plenty of witty character sketches, from Stephen Mangan's hilariously vain Miloshin to Jason Thorpe as both a deadpan evil Peacock and an absurdly camp Khazar King. Superb.

Until Jan 14, Lyric Hammersmith, King Street W6, various times, £12 to £25. Tel: 0870 050 0511. www.lyric.co.uk Tube: Hammersmith

The Magic Carpet