There’s a spicy flavour to the sixth annual season of free outdoor theatre at this beguiling riverside space, nestled alongside London’s City Hall. For the grown-ups there’s Lorca’s lyrical drama Blood Wedding. And younger audiences get their own tasty treat with this Cajun musical reworking of Little Red Riding Hood, adapted from Mike Artell’s book by Joan Cushing. It’s given a lively and likeable production by Phil Willmott, with witty masks and puppetry by Toby Olié and performances full of vim by a cast of appealing young actors.

Here Little Red, or rather Petite Rouge, is a venturesome duck who lives in the Louisiana swampland. When her Grandmère falls sick, Petite Rouge, accompanied by her loyal but “’fraidy” cat TeJean, is dispatched by her mother with a basketful of comforting gumbo and granny’s favourite extra hot chilli sauce. Her journey is, of course, fraught with peril and temptation. And though there is no wolf lying in wait, there is a scaly and seductive alligator called Claude, smacking his lips at the prospect of duck à l’orange.

The path Petite Rouge follows is rather too meandering; a detour to Mardi Gras in New Orleans is so lacking in narrative focus that by the end of it you’ve almost forgotten about poor old bedbound Grandmère, gasping for soup back at her shack. But the setting allows for some colourful theatrics, with dragonflies, frogs and turtles cavorting over the bayou and feathered masks and fans thronging Bourbon Street. And Cushing’s jaunty songs, blending jazz, dixie and hillbilly, help to keep the action bouncing along.

Emily Patrikios, in daffodil-yellow wellies, is a sparky Petite Rouge and James Alper a comical TeJean – even if you can’t help thinking that a cat makes a curious protector for such a tasty piece of poultry. Best of all, though, is Daniel Tawse as a hip-swivelling Claude, strutting in leather coat and cowboy boots, his voice a blusey growl. The show has plenty of energy to compete with the distractions of its open-air location, and at just 50 minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome even with the smallest viewers. Jolly and quirky.

Free. Until September 7 2008

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