The Little Mermaid review – underwater wonders cast a spell in mid-air

New Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme
A fresh telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s story deploys circus skills and inventive design to create a memorable merworld

The Little Mermaid is big business this Christmas, with versions of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale at Hull Truck, Nottingham Playhouse and Newbury’s Watermill, all buoyed perhaps by Disney’s 2023 blockbuster. Adapter Theresa Heskins and her co-director, Vicki Dela Amedume, present theirs as an all-ages gig-theatre show. We’re even introduced to each member of a house band nestled among the audience before meeting the main characters.

Rhiannon Skerritt plays the title role, here named Coralie, in a production that accentuates how Andersen made her the littlest of several merfolk. The romance isn’t entirely extinguished but the power of siblinghood rises to the surface instead in this telling, which also stresses the suspicion and division between the inhabitants of land and water.

At New Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, until 24 January