AT the height of the pantomime season, along comes Stephen Sondheim to twist the tale of Cinderella even more than Berwick Kaler's camp capers at York Theatre Royal.

Director-designer Robert Readman is a self-confessed Sondheim buff - rather more so than the rest of York, judging by the small audience on Thursday night- and for his first guest production for he has chosen the witty American's intricate, clever and constantly surprising musical drama.

Sondheim takes the fantastical, fanciful world of the fairy tale beyond the traditional happy ending into the land of blunt reality.

This is a place of deep dissatisfaction, tragedy and unhappy endings where pantomime and Hans Christian Andersen meets A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Brothers Grimm.

In the woods, Sondheim intertwines tales of Jack (plucky Joe Mills), Little Red Riding Hood (the skipping Jessie Haughton Shaw), Cinderella (Rachael Smithson) and Rapunzel (Jamie Lakin)) into the story of a barren couple, the baker and his wife (Luke Dunford and Amy Warnock).

To overturn the curse of the Witch (Vicki Lighfoot)) in their desire for a child, they must collect a cow, a blood-red hood, a golden slipper and a cord of blonde hair. Guiding them on their path is the Mysterious Man (the scene-stealing Chris Lakin), a New Age sage cooler than a fridge in summer.

In Sondheim's humorously upturned world, out goes the pantomime convention of cross-dressing; in come Ugly Sisters (Anna Wrigley Howe and Molly Proctor) as fashion conscious as Trinny and Susannah. The comic exaggeration of panto still plays its part, however, especially in the balletic leaps and haughty demeanour of Cinderella's Prince (Nick Holbek) and in the eye-catching cameo of Sarah Mills's cow, Milky-White.

Amid the leaves and pillars, Readman's cast handles the transition from light to dark with lan, with Jonny Holbek's bright and brisk Narrator and Mikhail Lim's Wolf adding to the entertainment.

The songs are the harder challenge, especially as so many of Sondheim's numbers have a relentless pace, but the musicianship of Clive Wass's 16-piece orchestra is jaunty and dramatic, and the singing of Vicki Lightfoot and Amy Warnock is outstanding.

Once more, Stagecoach sets a high bar for youth theatre and confidently leaps over it.


Into The Woods, Stagecoach Youth Theatre York, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, at 2.30pm and 7.30pm today. Box office: 01904 623568.