If you want to organise a truly special theatrical treat for the family this winter, there is an alternative to the unspeakably tacky modern pantomime with its soap stars and crass attempts at contemporary humour.
Book up instead for a truly magical entertainment. I refer to the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Stratford-on-Avon. This production had a highly successful and critically acclaimed run both in Stratford and in London last winter. How delightful that there should be this second opportunity to visit the deep magic of Narnia.
The story, for those who have led a Narnia-free existence ('What do they teach them in these schools?' as the Professor would say), centres on the adventures of four children evacuated to a big country house during the Second World War. A wardrobe becomes the doorway to a parallel universe, a fallen one like our own, where 'it is always winter and never Christmas' due to the tyrannical rule of the White Witch. How her power is broken and Narnia restored forms the substance of the story.
