It is the sheer beauty of this production that will stay with me this Christmas; a feast of graceful movement, brilliant light and soulful music - wrapped together as an absolutely joyful present.

There have been a number of adaptations of Hans Christian Anderson's 1836 fairy tale about The Little Mermaid. The story has been shaped and reshaped over the years and invariably given the happy ending which Anderson eschewed... so writer/director Theresa Heskins has historical permission to put her own twist in the tale, which she does with sensitivity and respect.

This little mermaid is Coralie, played with fun, bravery and wide-ranging empathy by Rhiannon Skerritt. She yearns to feel sunshine on her skin and as her 15th birthday approaches she dreams of the day she can sing on the surface. “You won't like it”, say her older sisters, with a swish of their fishy tails. The creatures in the 'world above' are clumsy and unkind. You might end up pickled in a museum, they tell her.  But Coralie is headstrong, and sells her siren song to the sea witch to make her dream come true.

Judging by the radiant, underwater world the New Vic team have given her, I'm surprised she wants to go.

You walk into a theatre transformed. The stage cloth is a rippled beach. Dunes circle the stalls. Daniella Beattie's most imaginative lighting design and composer Aurn Ghosh's swirling clarinet then take us down through the waves to the blue sea below.

The sea creatures are illuminated from within. Iridescent, articulated, tropical fish dart about the dark. Bright, colourful Sea Horses bob by, flexing their curling, prehensile tales. Transparent parasol jelly fish sway with the tide. It is a magical aquarium indeed. One small child behind me was so entranced she never kicked the back of my seat ever again.

It's one of the etherial jelly fish that sets the story going.

Darcy Braimoh plays Caspian, a young human pearl diver, who swims down from above searching for his fortune. But he brushes against a jelly fish and is stung into a stupor. In a twinkling moment of stage craft, Coralie gives him a bubble of air to get him back to the surface. She is destined to see him again.

Someone will have to coin a phrase to describe deep-sea-aerial-ballet. Supported by rigging, coils, ribbons and banners, the mermaids' dances are agile and elegant. We've seen Vicki Dela Amedume's suspended choreography at the New Vic before but the sense of it all being under water somehow adds to the majesty of her work. The artistes are transformed into something else.

When Act 2 opens, Coralie is washed up on the beach, shrieking with shock at the look of her new legs. Skerritt's acrobatic antics as she tries to stand had the children chortling. Her cod Shakespearian speech amuses the adults.

She meets Caspian again, but now Heskins places him in a modern irresponsible, barbecuing, beach bumming, yachting-hopping commune - where his heartless, hedonistic 'influencer' pal Xav (a study in callousness by Elliot Gooodhill) is streaming all their pointless doings to his sheep-like followers. To him the only value of a mermaid is the potential for commercial exploitation.     

At last we peep at the morality of Anderson's story amidst the spectacle. Human's can't always be trusted. Be careful what you wish for.

The story is often sung. Ines Sampaio as Red Whip Coral (crimson right down to her bovver boots!) has a wonderful voice and sings Ghosh's excellent, dramatic and appealing four-piece score with such gusto she owns the stage. It is she who powers this wonderful 5-star production, which transcends anything Disney has done with the story. This show really, really mustn't be missed.

Five stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme on Monday 24 November. The Little Mermaid continues to show at the venue until Saturday 24 January.