Dancing in the streets

The enduring allure of The Red Shoes has danced dizzy rings around Moira Shearer, Kate Bush and many more since Hans Christian Andersen first froze the folk tale on the page.

So it's to their eternal credit that Cornwall's Kneehigh Theatre have cast all memories aside to work their own kind of magic on the myth. Though staying true(ish) to the moral heart of the fable - you must rule your desires, don't let your desires rule you - director Emma Rice and her versatile company present a timeless take on the story that, cheeringly, lays the fate of the heroine's destiny firmly at her own door. And ours too, of course.

Helped in no small part by a stunning star turn from Giles King as Lady Lydia, the high camp narrator who stalks his/her way through the proceedings with sardonic grace filtered through drag queen grandeur, Rice leads us on an initially merry clog dance which, as innocence is supplanted by lust, becomes the stuff of bloody nightmares.

As the journey careers from miracle makeovers to butchershop amputations - funny, in a gristly kind of way - we're faced, in Lydia's words, with the eternal question: can any of us ever escape our obsessions? For we all have our own red shoes, if only we dare wear them; and then dare to take them off and stand on our own two feet.

The Red Shoes