CHRISTMAS wouldn't be Christmas in Yorkshire without a charming, clever, character-driven Mike Kenny winter play for children.

Hull Truck Theatre is staging the prolific York playwright's adaptation of Sleeping Beauty; the Stephen Joseph Theatre is making a meal – in a good way – out of his version of Hansel & Gretel.

Kenny always has a way of freshening up familiar fairytales, usually with a modern-day social conscience at its heart, and here he has a family sitting around a table telling scary stories about another family of less fortunate circumstances, living in near-starvation poverty.

Father (Jamie Chapman) is struggling to make ends meet as a woodcutter; Mother's heartless solution is to dump the children, Hansel (Peter Basham) and Gretel (Basham's wife Elinor Lawless), deep in the woods.

Whoosh, Browne adapts a tablecloth and tea cosy to transform into the frightening Wicked Witch in the Gingerbread house, with designs on eating the children. Eek, Chapman becomes a Giant Mouse under a size-enhancing spell, a Kenny invention that bizarrely but amusingly has Chapman doing a very passable impersonation of a bemused, disappointed Alan Bennett.

Kenny also has turned Gretel into a petulant, feminist teen, who has much more about her than older brother Hansel when it comes to being decisive, brave and feisty, whichs brings a new dimension to their squabbling relationship with humorous results amid the over-riding darkness.

This is very definitely not a glittery pantomime of magic and wonder, but a children's play of light and shade, with beautiful new a cappella songs written specially for the SJT by Oli Steadman, from the wonderful indie folk band Stornoway, and a strikingly minimalist Bavarian set design by Lucy Weller that evokes the dangers of the woods most effectively in the Round.

Henry Bell's direction lets the audience's imagination play its part and focuses on the characterisation, rather than big-bucks glitz, in keeping with Kenny having each character take a turn as narrator, each amusingly with a differing perspective.

Kenny's canny dialogue is a delight as ever, full of twists, wit and sincerity, with room for audience participation with bird and animal noises, as Grimm's tale provides new food for thought.

Hansel & Gretel, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until December 27, except December 20 and 25. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com