Watermill theatre, Newbury
A stupendous cast, outstanding stagecraft and delightful songs prove how thrilling an old story can become in the right hands

This musical incarnation of the classic story about a talking marionette has been made by many cooks: Michael Morpurgo took Carlo Collodi’s 19th-century original and remoulded it to tell Pinocchio’s story from the boy’s perspective. Simon Reade adapts that iteration for the stage, and Chris Larner adds songs on top. The result is an exemplar of how thrilling an old story can become in the right hands.

From the first gorgeous scene featuring a luminous cherry tree trunk wrapped around actors to signify the wood from which Pinocchio is forged, this production oozes carnivalesque energy and has an intimacy despite its big imagination. It packs in the drama to become an alchemical mix of music, movement, mischievous humour and quietly revolutionary puppetry.