The Elves and the Shoemaker

Published Wednesday 12 March 2008 at 17:15 by Pat Ashworth

The MAC arts centre closes next month for a £13.5 million refurbishment and won’t open again until autumn 2009. The company couldn’t have chosen better for its temporary swan song than Mike Kenny’s gloriously eccentric version of this favourite fairytale, which is also going into schools.

Vicky Virgo must have the biggest smile in Birmingham. As the cheery old woman who won’t be defeated by hardship, even when there’s no wood in the basket and no bread in the bin, she smiles through the tears and affectionately addresses her equally smiley husband (Leigh Kelly) as ‘Dear’.

They sneeze over the audience, potter about the shop and produce some wonderful mime as their shaking hands try to connect needle with thread on the workbench. The joy of the two puppets that depict the Elves is that they are miniatures of the two actors and manipulated by them. The smaller Elf is a pasty, wobbly little creature and his companion as ebullient as Virgo herself.

They swoop and perch and pop through windows in the jolly shop of Helen Davies’ design. And while the repetitive narrative and simple language is the stuff of traditional storytelling, the puppets’ language is beautifully child-like. “Snot. Tis. Smine,” they insist when they’re arguing over a piece of leather.

Twinkling lights introduce a strong element of magic, with the puppets themselves transformed from rags to riches in a glitzy ending that I wouldn’t dream of giving away. You don’t have to be five to enjoy this, just a child at heart.