Forty-five minutes of pure joy!  

A fable in the making, this little show - for little people - will go down in the history of The New Vic as the one that everybody should have seen, irrespective of their age. 

It’s very much like a modern day, full colour, silent, slapstick film (but with a jokey, jazzy soundtrack) that nails once and for all the myth that the only way to engross and entertain children today is with a bright screen full of CGI. If this kind of kids’ theatre catches on, Silicon Valley is doomed! 

Taking Hans Christian Andersen’s slight story as a starting point, Theresa Heskins and Vicki Dela Amedume expand his fairy tale into a wonderful comedy routine, packed with the kind of inventive, repetitious humour children and (in my case) pensioners adore. And it’s all done with pinpoint precision by four adventurously athletic actor/acrobats... who looked a trifle exhausted by the end.

There is a princess of course, (Rhiannon Skerritt) dressed in purple with a baby’s wail loud enough to bring the roof down. Her repeated leaps into bed get funnier every time.

The Princess has three servants. Robert Penny is the straight-faced Blue Servant, Nathan Johnston is the lugubrious Green Servant, and Danielle Bird is the (literally) bird-like Yellow Servant whose exaggerated, child-like facial expressions are simply wonderful - like Stan Laurel on speed.

Then there are the peas - dozens of them, getting everywhere. The were really (spoiler alert!) squishy, pea-green foam balls, similar to the red ones Tommy Cooper used, appearing and disappearing at will and (if one’s ears are to be believed) bouncing like escaping ping pong balls all-round the auditorium. 

I think I counted 16 mattresses. In her efforts to get a good night’s sleep, the Purple Princess stacks them up like a mattress mountain, which, of course has to be assembled and scaled - which is where the acrobatics come in. You’d be amazed what physical fun you can have with 16 bouncy mattresses. 

Children’s games have been cleverly and classily snuck into the plot. The kids are bound to recognise 'I’m The King of the Castle', and who doesn’t enjoy a cushion fight?

The set piece of the show, however, is the harum-sacrum, tempest tossed, horse-ride the Princess makes to the Prince’s castle. With flowing robes, a startled horse’s head, crashing thunder and cardboard cut-out lightning, the production team brew up a perfect storm. It’s a precisely judged presentation which leaves just enough to the imagination of child and pensioner alike. 

There is superbly comic music by Tayo Akinbode and very nimble punch-line spot effects from the fingers of Catherine Gibbs.

All of which blends beautifully together to tell this simple story with barely a word being spoken. This is a gem which shines so brightly, it must go far.

Five Stars

The Princess and the Pea was reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at The New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, where it plays until Saturday 29 June.