In forty years of theatre reviewing I have studiously avoided using the phrase, “you must see this”.

However, you really must see this!

Brought from the Bristol Old Vic to Theatre Severn by our tour-managing pantomime dame for just three days, Wonder Boy is absolutely wonderful. It enlightened the life of this septuagenarian and it will bring sceptical teenagers flocking back to the theatre. Its 'wiv der kids' approach to drama is right up their street and its street-cred youth version of the story of Hamlet is side-splittingly funny for everyone. (Apparently, it's a shit version of Lion King. I didn't know that.)

It's the brightest, bounciest, most ridiculously witty piece of theatre you could wish for.

In an urban estate school, 12-year-old Sonny has a serious stammer. He feels welded to the floor when everyone else is flying. It's so bad he can't tell the dinner ladies what he wants for lunch. His funky-but-very-caring teacher is doing her best to pull him through, despite the overburdening demands of the career-climbing head, and her impenetrable achievement questionnaires.

Sonny has two friends - the brilliant, wise-cracking Roshi and his comic book cartoon hero Captain Chatter, who conveniently communicates without words.

In the performance I saw Captain Chatter was played by a human rubber band called Ciaran O'Breen, who lets his wiry arms, bendy legs and ultra-mobile eyebrows do the talking.

Samir Mahat wonderfully portrayed Sonny's plight of being cornered into not even trying to speak and the actor obliges us to share the pain when he has to try.

Naia Elliott-Spence is an absolute hoot as straight-talking, motor-mouth Roshi, who has got the world 'sorted' in her own mind, if only to survive it. And Eva Scott is adorable as the form teacher every kid wishes they had, understanding and unexpectedly wicked with it.

The whole show is most entertainingly played out on a huge computer tablet set where every word spoken appears on screen amidst kids' comics 'thuds' and 'kerpows' which puts 'accessibility' on a whole new, non-boring level. The colour of the words helpfully matches the characters' costumes and Benji Bower's music drives the show along like a compulsive computer game.

The breakthrough moment in Sonny's story comes when he is given the part of 'a guard' in the school drama club's attempt at Hamlet. In a completely hilarious, screw ball scene, The Bard himself appears with a machine gun quill to terrorise the kids.

And when Sonny, on stage, stammers no more, it's so utterly moving the audience rustle of sweet wrappers stopped completely.

Wonder Boy has a superbly observed script by Ross Willis who completely 'gets' his target audience - and everybody else. Sally Cookson's direction is impeccably detailed and the cast are outrageously excellent. The language is strong but funnily inoffensive.

You really must go and see this. It's for gems like this that Theatre Severn was built.

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee

Wonder Boy continues to show at Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn until Wednesday 2 October. The production then plays Wolverhampton Grand Theatre from Thursday 3 to Saturday 5 October.