Hansel and Gretel. Shakespeare’s Globe.

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s wintry, polemical take on The Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel had a brief, troubled run at the Globe Theatre last year. The 60-minute show returns this Christmas in what seems to be a slightly reworked version that may leave families scratching their heads in bemusement. Themes of family betrayal are dialled down – no nasty stepmother here – with the focus instead on the struggles of survival during wartime. Armitage’s verse is clever and often beautiful, but iffy songs and downmarket production values detract from the whole.

It is wartime. Hansel (Ned Costello, vulnerable but stoic) and Gretel (Yasemin Özdemir, exuding hope and the more resourceful of the siblings) live in a mud-spluttered tent in what seems to be a refugee camp. “Where there was once a village, there’s now mostly rubble,” the Narrator (Jenni Maitland) tells us. At their wit’s end, Dad (Harry Hepple sings wonderfully) and Mum (Beverly Rudd) worry about the kids, so they decide to “hide them where bombs can’t find them”.  A camping trip to the forest sees the siblings abandoned to fend for themselves. The show’s best song (from an unconvincing bunch), Lamplight, has them dreaming about home.

Hansel’s trail of stones cannot be seen in daylight, and the breadcrumbs have been eaten by birds. As “morning sours into the afternoon,” a pack of foxes entice them to “a natural theme park of sugar” overseen by black-clad demons and a kindly-looking old woman (Rudd again, a kind of Yorkshire Mrs Doubtfire). But “for the candy floss read spider’s web”.

Gretel is set to work, and her brother fattened up, not for “Hansel and mash” but for sale to people traffickers. The witch comes to a predicably sticky end, but what will the kids face when they finally return to their parents? A homeward-bound trip over the ocean on a magic Swan is a rather too obvious nod to small boat refugee channel crossings. The ambiguous ending reminds us that life rarely delivers a ‘happy ever after’ and may not please fairy tale purists.

Rae Smith’s design palette takes its cues from homelessness and the rigours of war: boots, dirty puffer jackets, scuffed beanie hats, and animals constructed from grimy tent fabric. The idea is fine, but the absence of panto-style sequins and sparkles may leave some feeling short-changed from a Christmas show that is not particularly Christmassy.  Magnus Mehta and Patrick Pearson’s music is heavy on brass and adds a solemn tone to a show that struggles to raise many laughs. Adults of a certain age will enjoy Armitage’s many nods to long-departed brands of childhood sweets.

STAR RATING:  2.5 stars

Writer:  Simon Armitage

Director:   Nick Bagnall