The Adventures of Red Riding Hood – familiar fairy story characters lose their identity in a vivid forest (The MAC until 1 January)

There’s a wealth of creative talent on show at the MAC this Christmas: on the stage, in the wings, and behind-the-scenes. The Adventures of Red Riding Hood is the culmination of an array of disciplines working together to craft a distinctive Christmas show.

School’s out for Christmas and rather than picking up her daughter at the gate and whisking her home, Mama Hood sends Red off on a three-day trek to deliver a hamper to her Granny deep in the forest. She implores Red to follow the ‘Right Path’ not the ‘Wrong Path’. However, despite her best efforts to follow her smart phone directions, outside interference from a jealous Goldilocks disrupts her journey, and soon both Red and Granny Hood are in serious trouble.

Naoimh Morgan is a bundle of breathtaking energy in the title role, with her bubbly character capable of splurging out a volcano of ideas. With or without her trademark cape, Morgan commands attention from the audience. Mama Hood and Granny Hood are both played by a versatile and acrobatic Ash Ashton who shows off all manner of accents and even throws in some circus skills.

Writer and director Patrick J O’Reilly merges together different fairy tales and imagines what would happen if normally evil characters lost their well-established identities. What if they got in touch with their sensitive side and became more kind and mindful? Or maybe these sinister figures can’t really change?

What if the Wolf from Little Riding Hood was the same one who blew down the Little Pig’s Dwellings? Albeit he’s now the Well-Toned Wolf (Jay Hutchinson) who has been working on his anger management. What if Little Jack Horner – the pie-loving lad (played by Jack Watson) who pulled out a plum on the end of his thumb – was a serial entrepreneur who’d fleece anyone to make a quick buck?

And what if the homewrecking brat Goldilocks (a sparky Catriona McFeely) got a second chance? Ultimately trust is elusive (and illusive); friendships are slippery in the depths of the forest.

Diana Ennis’s beautifully simple set allows O’Reilly to play with how actors enter and leave the stage (for the second show in a row). Her white arches and doorways also offer a crisp blank canvas onto which Gavin Peden projects beautifully rich designs, delivering an object lesson on how video can enhance a theatre production. Not content with great vivid imagery, Peden bravely introduces live video into scenes, with selfies and live-streaming captured from Red’s smartphone incorporated into the projections. The cast and crew disguise the care needed to accurately position the moveable set, and make the whole enterprise look incredibly simple.

Composer and sound designer Garth McConaghie summons up a raft of character themes and songs to the show. Goldilocks/McFeely has fun with Listen Up Buckaroo/That’s My Story, while Red/Morgan’s Hey Mummy Hood I’m Doing What I Can had small children in the row in front of me picking up and mimicking Paula O’ Reilly’s choreography. I’m Warning You enjoyed a video game vibe with Peden adding mini-Timmy’s (a cyber security officer) dancing along the top of the arch. Not to mention the keychangetastic In The Belly Of The Wolf. The cast are all vocally able for the score, and everything is neatly reprised in snack-sized bites in the finale’s megamix.

The Adventures of Red Riding Hood is ambitious. It takes familiar characters and splices them together in a novel situation. The youngest audience members seem to recognise enough to follow the story – the ones sitting near me thoroughly enjoyed the cartoonish physicality – while the TikTok slang landed better with teenagers and seemed to sail over the older heads. Just shy of two hours long, the MAC has wisely programmed a lot of matinee and teatime performances. The production’s ambition also extends to the technology innovations that bring the show to life. And it’s incredibly pleasing to witness the cast bringing so much of their background and skills to the storytelling: their own identity is never lost.

Produced by the MAC, The Adventures of Red Riding Hood continues its run until Wednesday 1 January 2025.

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