THE battle is as much between film and theatre as Aslan the lion and the White Witch.

The cinema briefly reclaimed the rights to throw computer-generated imagery at CS Lewis's tales of Narnia, but now the huge white coats and arcing stairwells can come out of hibernation for a revival of Ians Brown's 2004 stage production.

Those who say theatre can't compete with the silver screen's superior technology are pointed in the direction of this winter wonderland in Leeds, a musical show that nourishes the imagination while laying on a visual feast of drama, danger and discovery.

Brown understandably has not changed the look of his epic family drama, retaining Ruari Murchison's set design with its revolving walkway, enchanted wardrobe and cutaway, rotating staircases that add movement and height to scenes in both the old professor's rambling country house and mystical Narnia. Still nothing tops the cliff-face of white coats, the surrealist portal to Narnia that recalls Magritte's art.

Stephen Snell's costume designs return too, with their echoes of vintage-schooldays comic books and canny combination of the animal and human world for the parallel universe of Narnia, where the Wicked Witch has vowed that it will be always winter but never Christmas. The reindeer's high heels are the stuff of a Christmas catwalk.

Video designer Mic Pool has a key role to play once more, and the master trick is to employ three mobile screens. As when one "video bubble" travels across the stage to match the motion of the train on the screen, this becomes theatrical rather than merely cinematic.

The changes come in the personnel on stage, and Brown has picked an entirely new cast for Adrian Mitchell's narrative-driven dramatisation, arguing that this time he knew from experience exactly who he was seeking. This is shown best in his casting of Clare Foster as the White Witch: she is icily haughty with just a hint of adult-naughty too.

The plucky, pink-cheeked quartet of wartime evacuees bonds and skits as brothers and sisters do as they learn of right and wrong. In particular, Stefan Butler brings more comic timing to the rebellious Edmund, while Amy Brown finds pathos in the tearaway Lucy.

Louis Decosta Johnson's self-sacrificing, noble Aslan is indeed the mane attraction, ensuring a roaring success for the Playhouse. The Lion reaps tonight.


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