Many look upon theatre, sometimes with justification, as the place for a snooze in the dark. For this piece, showing as part of the London international festival of theatre, Italy's Societas Raffaello Sanzio actually provides beds. You enter the theatre to find no seats but rows of small bunk beds. A woman urges you to take off your shoes and slip between the covers. When everyone is quiet she proceeds to tell a story.
Buchettino, better known in this country as Tom Thumb, is usually intended for the over-eights. But since it has, like most fairy tales, a grisly side that takes in child abuse, abandonment, cannibalism, murder and mutilation, the average adult theatre-goer who regularly visits the Royal Court will feel right at home.
The story, which combines elements of Hansel and Gretel with the tale of Jack the Giant Killer, tells of little Tom who is born to a poor woodcutter and despised by his family for his miniature stature. But what he lacks in height he makes up for in brains, and when the family falls on hard times and the woodcutter abandons his children in the forest it is Tom who saves the day.
The tale is told very simply by a single narrator who sits in the middle of all the beds and reads from a book. As she points out at the beginning, "there is nothing to see". Instead you lie back in the dark and "open your ears". What you get is a bedtime story with stupendous live sound effects that range from owls and a great storm to the sound of a hungry ogre hunting for children to eat just above your bed. It is scrumptiously scary although it also operates from a psychological point of safety - the bed.
And that, folks, is about it. At its least interesting Buchettino is nothing more than glorified storytelling and makes you wonder whether the children's story tape has not yet arrived in Italy. At its most interesting, however, it places the listener right at the heart of the story so that you experience it not as a detached observer but from the point of view of the abandoned child trying to survive on his wits in a hostile world.
It is also guaranteed to keep you awake. Like most of the young audience I began the performance lying down and ended up right on the edge of my bed.
Until July 8. Box office: 020-7223 2223.
