The only thing this flamboyant show fears is a dull moment

Brisbane-based Shake & Stir celebrates its 20th anniversary with a vaudevillian mash-up of Brothers Grimm fairytales. It’s a diverting, if lightweight, entertainment that ricochets with frenzied comedic momentum between the darkness and doom of the original folk stories, and the happily-ever-after whitewash of their Disneyfied progeny.

Audiences around the country might be familiar with the company’s popular adaptations across children’s and adult theatre. They’ve toured everything from Roald Dahl’s The Twits to George Orwell’s 1984 , and this show lands in some twisted panto-zone in between.

The plot is a precisely constructed chaos labyrinth of fairytale mayhem. Passages fork through story beats from Red Riding Hood , The Robber Bridegroom , Beauty and the Beast , and so on, though the central tale is Aschenputtel – the super-grim German folk version of Cinderella in which the “ugly stepsisters” hack off their toes to fit into the slipper and … get their eyes pecked out by doves at the wedding afterwards.

You can see why Disney didn’t go there, yet this flamboyant panto fears only the dull moment. It heaves with droll invention: splashes of comedy horror, silly sideswipes at some of the obnoxious politics underlying fairytales, and the meticulously choreographed slapstick and japery of commercial farce.

True, GRIMM is a bit light on music. In any event, the smattering of pop cabaret and musical theatre homage is performed with great dynamism and charisma by the four-strong ensemble (Aljin Abella, Helen Cassidy, Henry Rollo, Nelle Lee), and you wish there were more Big Bad Wolves and Red Riding Hoods singing it out.

As a satirical subversion of fairytales, however, GRIMM can’t match the highest level of musical theatre. It pales in comparison to the sardonic sophistications of Sondheim’s Into the Woods , say, or even Meow Meow’s apocalyptic cabaret reworkings of Hans Christian Andersen stories.

What GRIMM does give us is much more lowbrow, but no less skilled. If Dracula’s theatre restaurant had ever put on a fairytale-themed show, it might have looked something like this cartoonish crowd-pleaser.

Sadly, the Melbourne Dracula’s was staked for good, after 37 years of operation, in 2017. This show may well find a niche among its former clientele, with an energetic mix of undemanding, unpretentious performance styles – theatre restaurant cabaret, pantomime, and inane commercial comedy – geared to ensure popular appeal. Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC Vera Blue | Modern Rituals Tour ★★★★ Northcote Theatre, August 26

We’re in a forest in the middle of inner-city Melbourne. White gauze curtains form a mysterious cubicle on the stage, imprinted with the ominous shadow of bare trees. A figure steps out from the curtains, large black angel wings cutting a striking silhouette. She opens her mouth and sings.

The woman is Celia Pavey, better known as Vera Blue.