Anticipation is more often than not an unhelpful springboard for the theatregoer and anyone expecting gauzy flutterings from this premiere production will certainly leave with revised ideas.

Although based on the famous 1920s investigations into the Cottingley Fairies (‘recorded’ at the bottom of a rural English garden), Paul Graham Brown’s musical drama is interested in a wider social context. Moreover, a fine chamber ensemble orchestrated by Gabriel Baird lifts the experience to another dimension.

Extensive programme notes explain not only the patient and wide-ranging development required, but also reference post-war social conditions of the time, when enthusiastic approaches to supernatural experience, spiritualism, theosophy and séance sometimes offered relief to a shattered Europe.

As the writer clarifies,’Fairystories tells the story of people brought together in this time of change. It tells of how letting go and moving on to face the unknown nearly always require soul searching and much courage’. The fairies do have their moments though.

The early scenes are a simple enough introduction to three sets of characters who drive the whole.

In their country Yorkshire cottage, widowed amateur photographer, Edward Coleshaw is reprimanding his son Henry, who seeks refuge in a solitary woodland spot where he hears the voices of his ‘friends’. In his head? Real? We pay attention.

In a neighbouring cottage, brave, once-wealthy Elsie Van Dorsen, now widowed, is escaping her South African past with her very reluctant daughter, Polly, in tow. On the open road, we meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his chauffeur Toby, completing a set of characters that will furnish a narrative more complicated than first impressions.

There are attractions and antagonisms to negotiate, fantasies, rejections and confessions to absorb and, through it all, the world suggested by those woodland voices to ponder.

An exceptionally strong cast handles both scripted action and the music that so confidently enhances it with assurance. As Edward, Roy Snow quickly establishes his credibility as a careful recorder of images and light, at the same time giving us a down-to-earth Yorkshireman. Across the way, neighbour Elsie, played by Ali Harper, brings radiance of her own which cannot be dimmed by the domestic chores now facing her. Both add fine vocal colour in their musical encounters.

They are not outdone by the spirited Sophie Landis as Polly and Oscar Parkes’ nicely controlled Henry. Blair McHugh as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is in top form and voice as the authority figure, ably supported by Elijah Moore as Toby.

Musically and in terms of the characterisation she directs, Louise Glossop’s production is colourfully secure. The challenge of a visual design is less successful, but the enjoyment cup is still, at least, three-quarters full.

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