Sticking fairly closely to its Brothers Grimm source, Humperdinck's musically sophisticated fairy-tale opera adds in enough extra dollops of sweetness and tartness to ensure its continued fascination for audiences of all ages. But Lewis Reynolds's seasonal staging for Open Door Opera doesn't always make the grade in visual or dramatic terms.

Virtually uncut, though necessarily slimmed-down at Islington's pub-cum-opera-house, it hits the imaginative buffers of creating something magical within a limited budget and a tiny space. The interventions of Daisy Brown's Sandman and Alexandra Stevenson's Dew Fairy – the latter looking like a party girl on a spree in Eleanor Reynolds's costume – are nicely sung but offer little mystery. Arm gestures substitute for acting, especially in the lengthy dream pantomime sequence where the children meet up with their feckless parents in Valentino Monticello's bare tree-stump forest. Even the crucial moment when the witch is shoved into her own oven makes minimal impact.

The two leads – Laura Kelly's Hansel and Danae Eleni's Gretel – offer assured vocalism, with Kelly's rounded mezzo a particular pleasure. But both look self-conscious as adults attempting to play children and their adorable smiles quickly congeal into fixed grins. Janet A. N. Fischer is the suitably harassed mother, but Ian Wilson-Pope's genial Father struggles with his high notes.
Ian Massa-Harris's drag-act Witch is a mixed blessing, with some awkward vocal moments but a good basis for the comic-grotesque; there's a genuinely threatening frisson to the character's interest in the kids.

Where the show achieves its aims most successfully is in Kelvin Lim's expert pianism and keen musical direction. Realising a richly orchestrated late-Romantic score on a single keyboard is a major challenge, but Lim brings out Humperdinck's folksy charm and glamorous quasi-symphonic textures with skilful aplomb.

* Until 30 December. Box-office: 020-7478 0160.

ENDS