Showing @ venues across Scotland until 5 May

Beauty and the Beast is arguably one of the most popular of all fairytales, and its moral on the value of inner beauty is one that encompasses both children and adults alike. So it comes as no surprise that Musselburgh-based theatre company Catherine Wheels, the 2010 TMA Award Winners for Best Show for Children and Young People, have embarked on a new and dark retelling in the form of Caged by Rob Evans.

The performance as a whole is good – Andy Manley has a great animal-like stagger as the Beast, whilst Rosalind Sydney’s Beauty is human, chirpy and identifiable. The highlight is Karen Tennent’s enchanting set which is overflowing with detail, from numerous antique clocks hidden amongst branch-like mirrors, to a ring of carefully placed leaves encompassing the performance space. Director Gill Robertson’s vision of reinventing the set to represent different scenes is effectively brought to life with a combination of music, lighting and of course the two performers, even if their seemingly endless running around in circles does become slightly tiresome.

But what so severely lets down an otherwise decent production is its inability to fulfill its own promise of a new and dark retelling of a classic tale, which is disappointingly received by the audience. Far from being dark, there are a few funny moments but these have little if any bearing on the plot, which is as alike the original Beauty and the Beast as it could ever be. In fact very little feels new in this production, bar a few modern but insignificant references to games of Snap or the January sales. This is the real beast of the production which sadly, unlike its character counterpart, doesn’t quite manage to reveal glimmers of inner beauty.