"Awful Auntie" by David Walliams.

The Birmingham Stage Company.

Nottingham Theatre Royal.

When Stella sets off to visit London with her parents, she has no idea her life is in danger! When Stella wakes up three months later, after a car crash that had killed her parents, only her Aunt Alberta can tell her what has happened. But not everything Alberta tells her turns out to be true and Stella quickly discovers she’s in for the fight of her life against her very own awful Auntie! As the play title suggests Auntie Alberta is quite simply awful. In fact she is only keeping Stella alive until she finds the deeds to Saxby Hall and she can get her to sign them over.

The only reason Stella can't move is that she has been completely wrapped up in bandages and after three months in bed she is completely healthy, so she tries to escape. Unfortunately Auntie Alberta, and her pet owl "Wagner", catch Stella and lock her away. The twelve year old is all alone, but soon befriends a ghost “Soot” who helps her uncover the truth about her parent's death, and together they plot revenge against her Awful Auntie.

Fortunately Aunt Alberta can't see Soot because after all, adults don't believe in ghosts, do they? According to the story though, children can only see ghosts until they turn thirteen! The hero of the hour though comes in a completely unexpected form; but if you've read the book, you'll already know that!

I've only seen "Gangsta Granny" on stage previously, and must confess that I've never read any of the books by David Walliams, but this story proved to me that Walliams' books, and plays have that ability to transcend the "childrens" scope of literal entertainment. I love all of the stuff that you see on TV that David has been involved in, mainly because of the silliness, but after seeing this production, I may now start to search out his books and start to read them as well.

Neal Foster is the adapter and Director of "Awful Auntie", and for the very first time he is also playing Alberta, the Awful Auntie. Neal is also the Manager of The Birmingham Stage Company. Fantastically fun and a characterisation that slightly reminded me of Adrian Edmondson, another one of my favourite off the wall comedy actors. Looking through the notes in the programme, Neal has had a varied career, showing that he obviously can turn his acting hand to just about anything with aplomb.

Stella is played by Annie Cordoni and manages to convincingly portray a twelve year old, albeit a ballsy twelve year old. Everything and everyone in this production oozes fun with their characters.

Emily Essery plays and operates Wagner, Aunt Alberta's feathered fiend, sorry friend.

As with any expert in the field of puppetry and physical theatre, it's not too long before you forget the puppeteer and only concentrate on the puppet in hand; a tribute to the person behind the puppet. Wagner soared around the stage and over part of the audience, but Wagner is not such a faithful feathered friend as Alberta imagines!

Soot, who is a ghost, is brought to life by Matthew Allen. I can imagine Matthew being a brilliant panto character because playing Soot brings a panto element to the show. This could be because of the energy and exaggerated physicality on stage, which straight away means fun.

Zain Abrahams plays Gibbon, the slightly eccentric old Butler, who has a penchant for mowing the carpets indoors among many other oddball pastimes! Wonderfully wacky and always nice to see home grown talent on the stage as Zain is a former student of the Midlands Academy of Dance and Drama. I thought the name rang a bell for some reason.

The final character is Detective Strauss who Stella wella calls to help her out of the pickle that her Aunt has put her in, but will he be any help at all? Played by Elan Retsof, who I am sure I've seen somewhere before. Mmmmm!

Assistant Director/Movement Director is Richard J Hinds. There's an awful lot of movement in this show, in fact it's very rare to see any cast member staying still for more than a few seconds. The pace is hectic and keeps the young audience members completely fixated on the action.

The Set and Costume Designer is Jackie Trousdale. The set looks quite minimalistic but there are a couple of rotating "columns" which, like the Dr Who Tardis, seems to hold a lot of scenery. Between them they contain the core of a bedroom, cellar, roof, garage, study, library, garden and more.

There's also a scaled down section which represents outdoor scenes, including a lake section and a giant snow owl!

Puppet Designer and Puppet Direction is by Yvonne Stone. Not only do we get that gorgeous Wagner puppet, we also get mini puppets of Stella, Soot, Wagner and Alberta, which enables the story to be taken to another level; a level that takes us up on the roof where the drama reaches new heights!

The design of the mini puppets are really good, and really well operated, making the live puppetry appear almost like animation with the flexibility of the smaller puppet stars.

Lighting is by Jason Taylor, sound is by Nick Sagar and the music is by Jak Poore.

Video Design by Simon Wainwright opens the show and sets the scene, as well as a bit of the history of the characters, story and Saxby Hall.

Although David Walliams' story is aimed at a younger audience, it has quite a dark side, and could be made into a really dark TV show of the likes of "Inside No.9". Let's face it, almost mummifying a pre-teen, throwing her into a dark coal hole of a cellar, moving her to a cage and dishing out electric shocks, all to get the deeds to the property, and what would Stella's fate be after that?

With Alberta's track record, that could only mean one outcome for her niece! Thank goodness there's so much comedy involved as that shrouded the dark side of this production from younger eyes and ears. My older eyes and ears though absolutely relished that dark side.

It's not often that I comment on the souvenir programmes, but this one has everything that a young visitor to the theatre could want. Loads of fun stuff in there and some interesting owl facts.

"Awful Auntie" is suitable for anyone over the age of 5 and is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Sunday 23 June. Don't be a twit, twoo miss this fast paced and fun show would leave you owling, and not with laughter.