Folk tale enchants in song

By Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by Mat Sweeney and Jesse Rasmussen. Four Larks Theatre, Richmond, until tomorrow Running time: 85 minutes fourlarkstheatre.com

PEER Gynt is notoriously difficult to stage, largely because it wasn't written with the stage in mind. A sprawling fantasy in verse, the play features trolls and shipwrecks, monsters and adventure. It presents many technical challenges. Some of these Ibsen resolved through music, commissioning Edvard Grieg to compose a score that has become arguably more famous than the play itself.

Four Larks Theatre, a company of young artists from Australia, the US and Britain, takes a leaf out of Ibsen's book. Music is key to its enchanting production.

Most of the performers double as musicians, and some scenes are memorably captured in song: Solveig (Kate Berry) and her sister (Ramona Ray-Greig) join in haunting folk harmonies; an all-male vocal quintet sings of Peer's stint as a Moroccan businessman; and the Statue of Memnon (Genevieve & Jezabel) comes to life in a hypnotising solo harp performance.

By necessity, the play is heavily cut. Occasionally this reduces it to pantomime - as with the caricatured portrayals of Anitra (Chris Hewitt) and Peer's mother Ase (Caitlin Williams). But more often than not this is a virtue. The direction (Mat Sweeney and Jesse Rasmussen) is taut and imaginative.

Given the resources they had, this Peer Gynt is an extraordinary achievement. Four Larks is a team of theatre-makers to watch.