This was Matthew Bourne’s first full length work, made three years before the ground-breaking Swan Lake, with its cast of male swans, that hurled him into ballet super-stardom. Its enduring appeal is evident in the fact that it’s playing to full houses 20 years later.

With this Nutcracker, the choreographer reasoned that the colourful fantasy of Clara’s dream would be more effective if there were no luxurious party at the start of the work — luxury that for most people is already a fantasy. So it opens in the drab, bare dormitory of an awful Dickensian orphanage run by Dr Dross and his wife. They have two spoilt, overdressed children, Fritz and Sugar, and are expecting a Christmas visit from the governors, so a few paper hats, the only colour to be seen, are handed out. There is a lot of comedy and some sadness in the contrast between the poor inmates and the rich visitors, but the whole thing is lit up by the wonderful performance of Hannah Vassallo as Clara. Here is a real star with huge personality and charm, and, as we see later on, a beautiful dancer too. Clara has a young girl’s first love for a good looking boy in the orphanage.

Eventually the orphans revolt and escape, and now we move through the usual dream locations. Savouring their freedom they skate across a frozen lake, with its gently falling snow. Then Clara is led to Sweetieland by her two best friends from the orphanage, now transformed into a pair of blonde Cupids in striped pyjamas. Here Bourne’s colourful imagination runs riot as we meet the fluffy Marshmallow Girls, the yobby Gobstopper Boys, the vain Liquorice Allsorts and the sticky Knickerbocker Glory. Dr Dross and his wife are now King Sherbert and Queen Candy, rulers of this sugary realm. The national dances are performed by the characters listed above, and there is a big duet for the awful children, now Princess Sugar and Prince Bon Bon. The finale features a huge wedding cake, like the tower of Pisa, with the whole lot of them perched on its leaning layers. All this is well done, and it’s good fun, but it wrongly sidelines Clara, until she wakes up to find that the object of her love reciprocates, and they escape together forever.

Until Saturday. 0844 871 3020 or www.atgtickets.com/oxford