This children’s play was a cheerful and imaginative telling of Room on the Broom through song, puppetry and some nicely executed physical theatre. The cast ‘flying through the sky”, a frequent occurrence as you’d imagine, was really well choreographed, and the songs and audience interaction bewitched the young audience.

The story was supplemented with each of the animals having their own introductory song, plus a neat framing device introducing the actors and setting which delighted the young crowd. For the entire first ten minutes my daughter forgot she had a brioche in her hand - high praise indeed.

My daughter’s favourite animal was the frog - an amiable, stretchy-legged puppet with a neatly subversive backstory about being pursued by a princess. Mine was the delightfully campy dragon, who charmed the audience by asking who wanted to be eaten. It’s always a risk with the finale of stories like this that they can be a bit scary for very young children, but this was pitched well to make the peril clear without ever being truly threatening.

Despite the excellent set and puppetry, my favourite element of the show was the performances of the small cast - they really exuded friendliness and seemed to be genuinely having fun along with the children, which created a warm atmosphere.

My daughter, aged 2 and a half, was a little under the recommended age for this show. She absolutely loved it and the only thing that made me feel she was a little young was that she was wriggling a lot after 45 minutes, and the show lasted for an hour. I would say that it’s worth taking a child from about 2 years up - it would make an absolutely lovely first theatre trip, especially if they were familiar with the book. We’ve taken her to other, less formal shows, but this was one of the first “proper” plays she’s seen and I will absolutely return to anything else Tall Stories brings to Oxford. I very much recommend this imaginatively staged and warm-hearted show.