On his travels, a merchant is taken captive by a prince transformed by witchcraft into a hideous Beast. The Beast negotiates the merchant's release on the fair trade of one of his daughters. Upon hearing the tale, Beauty sacrifices her freedom for her father's life.

Simon Sharkey's brilliant script for this classic tale fuses traditional pantomime and storytelling creating a captivating, fast paced and humorous show for all the family. Refreshingly un-Disney, elements of the tale take influence from the darker versions of the story where the relationships of the ugly sisters and the father hint at the materialism of King Lear's own spawn.

Set in the attic of a motherless family, this Carnegie Hall production utilises animated sequences created by DfieFoe to overcome some of the more challenging aspects of staging an epic fairytale in a mid sized theatre with often unintentionally hilarious consequences.

With a modest cast of five, each performer undertakes numerous and diverse characters to relay the tale to an utterly captivated audience of children and adults. Sean Hay as the father holds the plot together with emotional and comic scenes in equal measure, all expertly delivered. Candice Edmunds (Beauty) and Gareth Glen (Beast) turn in accomplished performances that ensure the initial audience sympathy for the comically excellent Sandra McNeelley and Mary Gapinski's ugly sisters is lost as they descend into their gluttony for ‘bling'.

This high energy refreshingly festive production sets out to give the audience “an enchanting story with loads of laughs & excitement” and not only manages to do that, but offers everything in between.

At the Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline until Saturday 31 December 2005