Gruppe 38's exquisitely realised piece of dramatic storytelling is nothing less than a little gem of sheer magic. The company, from Aarhaus in Denmark, is providing one of the international highlights of this year's excellent Young at Art festival, whose colourful programme of daytime and early evening performances has been basking in appropriately glorious sunshine. Children and their chaperones leave the dazzling light of Belfast's College Square North to come up into the enclosed black box of the performance space. There they are greeted by a smiling, bald-headed man and a slightly distracted woman in white, nursing a baby.
Bodil Alling is the female narrator. Her silent mouthings begin to weave the Grimm Brothers' familiar tale of the abandoned children, Hansel and Gretel, told in a bewitchingly low voice, pleasantly accented in the Northern European tones which gave it birth. But for all that we know its twists and turns so well, nobody could be prepared for the sophisticated and technically complex manner of its telling. To the tinkling, seductive strains of Soren Sondberg's keyboard score, Bodil Alling uses every muscle of her strikingly attractive face and every ripple of her white muslin clothing to become, in turn, a projection screen for some sweet and scary images, then a wide-eyed child, a candy-coated gingerbread house, a wizened hag and, breathtakingly, the raging fire that consumes the source of the young victims' terror. Word pictures morph into vivid visual treats, while the musician steadily munches his way through a bowl of marshmallows and winds us into the subversive humour of this black, bittersweet tale, which is a delight for adults and children alike.
Hans und Grete is at the Old Museum until tomorrow, with performances at 4.00pm and 6.00 pm. Tel: Belfast 90233332 for tickets and information.