
With her chestnut hair bleached and shorn, her buckled boots and her ockerish banter with the audience and musicians, Katie Noonan woos us with ordinariness. But, as soon as the first notes are struck and she opens her mouth to sing, we know we are in the presence of the divine.

We think we’re safe in “the west” from the atrocities that happen elsewhere; the war, the poverty, the displacement. To deal with the Devil seems just as unlikely, until it happens.

Tom Ballard’s show The World Keeps Happening is everything a thesaurus could pump out at you if you looked up the word funny.

The play follows the day in the life of this disaffected youth on the fringe of society, as he tries to make sense of himself and his troubled upbringing.

It’s always an unknown when you buy tickets to a show like the Gala, because the cast is not announced beforehand. There would have been very few disappointed punters with this comedy line up.

The magic of the book has now been brought gloriously to the stage by Jonathan Rockefeller, who combines the caterpillar’s famous tale with 3 other beloved Carle stories, and brings them to life with the use of 75 puppets.

In choosing to stage Swallow, the company has not taken the easy option of delivering a crowd pleasing night at the theatre. It is a tough, terrifying, complex and conflicting play that demands attention. And this production is palpably arresting.