Following the trials and tribulations of the eponymous Stick Man, this hour-long performance at Leicester Square Theatre is a good shout for those with young children. The Stick Man is a puppet made of sticks, rather than the stickman you’d recognise from the game ‘Hangman’, and spends the best part of forty minutes trying to get back to his Stick Lady and three Stick Children after having been cruelly abducted by a strutting cockney dog during a morning run. As you would suspect of a production aimed at three-year-olds, the plot is not complex and you’ll struggle to find layers of meaning. Nevertheless, it hits the brief in regard to the target audience, is well-conceived and executed, and is even quite charming in places.

Richard Keiss is the actor tasked with voicing and carrying our stick puppet, and overall he produces a competent display – the children in the audience seemed to find him very funny. Although Keiss utilises the probably very necessary over-enthusiasm that is often present when acting for children, I didn’t find it particularly saccharine, which is a great success in my book. This also meant that the adults in the audience like myself weren’t completely alienated by a level of cheeriness that disappears the second you discover coffee and cigarettes.

Backing up Keiss is Rachel Winters, who mostly serves as the various antagonists of the show, and Joseph Carey, who seems capable of playing every musical instrument ever invented. This includes what I can only describe as a paint can with a metal chain in the middle that somehow produces this weird warbling sound. Carey flits between his dozen or so instruments, narrating the piece and playing the odd role. I would be surprised if Winters and Carey have never performed in children’s theatre before, as they seemed like hardened veterans that, with Keiss, produce a natural chemistry that is satisfying to watch.

I only have one major complaint with this show: the line “and he is the most handsomest stick of all”. As someone who becomes… ‘troubled’ by poor grammar, I have to question whether young children should be taught that this is a grammatically correct way of complimenting a stick. That’s probably making a mountain out of a molehill on my part, but if I ever find the person who keeps bandying about the tautology ‘Free Gift’ on the front of magazines, I’ll be giving them a piece of my mind.

I’d advise against going to watch Stick Man if you aren’t a proud parent, as there isn’t really enough comedy directed to the adults and the story is pretty basic. However, if you do have kids it’s a visually attractive show that will have them fascinated, and probably give them a new-found enthusiasm for using their imagination to play with sticks. Hey, it’s a lot cheaper than an iPad.

Stick Man is playing at the Leicester Square Theatre until 3 January. For more information and tickets, see the Leicester Square Theatre website. Photo: Steve Ullathorne