Once upon a time, there was a no-nonsense advertising executive named Lucy, happily climbing the corporate ladder until, one day, a strange package arrives in the post that forces her to confront her buried childhood trauma. In The Bright Side of the Moon writer Sue Meehan and puppet designer Emma Fisher collaborate to imagine an adult fairytale that blends performance with puppetry. Lucy (Cara Christie) is deeply scarred after witnessing something terrible as a child. While she'd diligently repressed her psychological pain, her demons are summoned by a parcel sent from the widow of Beard, her former therapist who'd been steadfastly trying to unlock her youthful darkness.

As the action jumps from past to present, puppets are used on stage to represent young Lucy, Beard's ghost, a sage shrink and a chatty housecat, while on a white screen behind the actors, shadow puppets illuminate Lucy's precocity during her childhood therapy sessions. While the interplay of shadow and light helps to arouse the audience's imagination, Fisher's beautiful puppetry production cannot disguise the flaws in Meehan's script. There is no questioning the imaginative power of fairytales, but adults yearn for stories with greater psychological depth and nuance.

Donald Mahoney