First published in the Guardian on 28 August, 2015
This production is a joy to watch: an enchanting, big hearted, supremely loveable piece of whimsical animation and nimble stagecraft. Its creators are director Barrie Kosky, illustrator Paul Barritt and writer Suzanne Andrade of the theatre company 1927; it was first staged in 2012 at the Komische Oper Berlin and has already become a bit of a sensation at home and abroad. There are the makings of a classic here. Just as Bedlam will forever be crosshatched cubicles for anyone who saw David Hockney’s designs of The Rake’s Progress, so Barritt’s image of The Queen of Night as a knife-throwing cosmic arachnid will be hard to dislodge.