Few productions in a 300 seat theatre can boast back projections, sound effects and sets to the quality that you get at The Other Palace theatre in their production of Big Fish.  When you combine this big-hitting little theatre with a razor sharp young cast of new talent and a big name brand actor at the centre of it you get an irresistibly likeable show.

The story is an impossibly difficult tale to fit onto a musical stage and the leap of imagination needed if you've seen the original film or read the book is perhaps just one skip of the pebble over the water too many.  There is a giant and there is a circus, but if you come at this show cold, there is nowhere near enough time in the show to understand the main characters beyond Kelsey Grammer's central role as Edward Bloom and his propensity for telling tall tales.

So you just have to go with it.  It's a tale of telling tales after all.  

What's real, what's embellishment, what's just fantasy and most importantly what do the tales tell us is pretty much the plot in a nutshell.  The rest of the story hangs as tenuously as Kelsey holds a note - it's there, just.

But none of this can take away from the uplifting spirit of the show.  I haven't had to sell a kidney to buy the tickets, the seats are comfortable, I can see the stage and this is a great show.  Most appealing of all is that the young British actors not only hold their own alongside an old hand like Grammer, but their ebullient young American accents are comfortably believable and the impetus they give the show carries you through the leaps of faith you have to make to believe the story.

Matthew Seadon-Young, Frances McNamee, Laura Baldwin, and Tanisha Spring stood out as great new talent who will no doubt put this short run to good use in building their repertoire.   

Refreshingly straight forward this is a show that keeps its pretensions to itself and concentrates on delivery an evening of entertaining tales with a light touch and a sincere heart.