Everyone knows the tale of Chicken Licken, a naive little chick who is struck by a falling acorn and concludes that the sky is falling down. This one-man kids' show animates that story using puppetry, cookery, some nice music and a gorgeous set, taking out any sad / scary bits and joining the story up neatly with that of the Little Red Hen.

The puppets are lovely, the puppetry is great (I particularly liked the animation of the journey to see the king, with all the different birds illustrated in coloured shadow puppetry behind a bread cloth screen) and the overall effect is a calm, gentle show for younger children (crazy Foxy Loxy chase scene aside). This worked so well (the kids were extremely attentive) that the moments designed for audience participation were often met with a shy silence, possibly because we were a small Saturday morning audience, or possibly because a bit more could have been done to encourage the kids to get involved. For me, the titular story was over all too quickly - admittedly, it's not a long or complicated one in the first place, but if Disney can make a feature film of it (Chicken Little), I'm sure it's not beyond others to add a little filler. And finally: through odd coincidence, the only other one-man kids' puppet show I've taken my three-year-old to see also featured a baker at his counter (must be a popular format) - but that one had nursery rhymes to join in with and live music, which was a little bit more engaging (at least, for me).

To go back to my three-year-old, whose view is the one that really counts here: she watched the show avidly throughout (only leaving her seat to stand up for a better view) and seemed genuinely scared when Foxy Loxy popped up, indicating real engagement with the show, which, at under an hour long, was just perfect for the attention span of a little one. What better recommendation is there?