The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh

The sound of an air-raid siren followed by a tearful scene of war-time evacuation is not the most promising of openings to a Christmas show. And neither is the frosty welcome the four Pevensie children receive from Mrs Macready when they reach the supposed safety of the country house.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is certainly not the easiest of stories to bring off on stage. And there's no escaping the fact that much of CS Lewis's novel is difficult to swallow, with its Christian symbolism and trail of moral threads, not helped here by the stilted language of Glyn Robbins's now dated adaptation. It's only when Lucy (given a touching vulnerability by Amy McAllister) slips through the back of the wardrobe and discovers the winter wonderland of Narnia that Mark Thompson's slightly earnest production becomes more susceptible to magical fantasy.

The characters encountered in Narnia, however, are quaintly fanciful, led by the visually arresting Meg Fraser, who produces a dementedly cackling White Witch. Daniel Williams doubles as a jolly Father Christmas and the magisterial Aslan, the ruler of Narnia, who lays down his life to spare Edmund. Smaller roles are also well defined, with David Lucas a camp faun when he's not Mr Beaver; Owain Rhys Davies particularly foul as the Witch's right-hand dwarf; and Sandy Grierson a sinister Maugrim the wolf.

There's little to fault in Ken Harrison's fantastical designs and Philip Pinsky's exuberant soundscape, but this slice of Narnia lacks theatrical panache. It's all sightly one-dimensional, and I longed for more whimsy, and more involvement of the children watching the spectacle.