The brilliant Italian theatre company Teatro Kismet return to the Playhouse next week with The Mermaid Princess, a new, English-speaking adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic The Little Mermaid. Four years ago they brought us another Andersen story, The Snow Queen, which they performed using a fascinating mixture of speech, physical theatre and dance. The same techniques are featured in this new production, as I heard from its UK producer Judy Owen. “What people can expect is a ravishing re-telling of the tale, sumptuous costumes, with the setting created through stunning lighting effects, with space defined through light in bold Technicolor colours.There’s also a really mesmerising sound-base.

“I think it’s a more intimate show than The Snow Queen; the drama and the characters are more central to the story this time.

“You have the same beautiful, poetic images, but I think it’s a more intimate form of story-telling that brings you close to the characters.

“The mermaid falls in love with a shipwrecked prince whom she rescues, and makes a bargain with a sea witch to exchange her beautiful singing voice for human form.

“But she will turn into sea mist if she fails to marry him. It’s a very painful metamorphosis; Andersen describes her first steps on land as being as painful as walking on shards of glass, and you feel that in Kismet’s version. It’s a tragedy really, because, when the Prince does not marry her, she is given one chance to win back her old life as a mermaid by killing the prince, but her love is so great that she makes the ultimate sacrifice, and loses her life, and is transformed into a cloud of sea-mist.”

The Mermaid Princess is at The Playhouse from next Thursday to Saturday, with a matinée as well as an evening performance on Saturday. Box office: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).