Human touch

A word of warning: don't go to this show expecting Paul Dukas's overture and dancing broomsticks. The Snap Theatre Company challenges its young audience with an alternative voyage into a future fantasy world where a young Hoblin is learning how to be human.

There is a touching simplicity to artistic director Andy Graham's scenario, which builds on traditions of magical self-discovery going back as far as medieval texts on knighthood. On Hoblin Day - the Hoblins' version of Christmas - the young Hoblin, Art, receives a series of gifts which he rejects one by one, until he is given a magic ball, with special powers - and then his adventures begin.

There is plenty of slapstick for younger children, and some clever tricks of staging for older imaginations. When Art finds himself on Sugar Mountain, he is surrounded by spinning umbrellas that become the "Sugar-Copters" that carry away the sugar; later he is raised so that his head pops up through a blue canopy that stands in for the sky where stars whirl around him to symbolise his arrival at the end of the world.

The clear sense that something can be gleaned about loving, sharing and being human from each adventure occasionally makes this piece overly didactic. But this should not detract from its bold lunge for children's imaginations, which - on the day I went - was certainly appreciated by the theatre-full of bewitched seven-year-olds. At Norden Farm Centre, Maidenhead (01628 788997), until Saturday; then touring until 9 March. Information: 01279 461607.