We can all agree that, among other things, the Beauty and the Beast story provides a lesson in understanding and tolerance. Don’t prejudge that big rampaging monster because somewhere deep inside him, waiting to be unlocked, may be a considerate, loving chap who, with a little help from someone like Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet, could end up dancing the cotillion in the Pump Room in Bath. And that’s certainly one of the conclusions that emerges from the version of Gabrielle de Villeneuve’s 18th-century original that the cult company Told by an Idiot has brought to London W6.

Anyway, Leo Wringer clambers on and around the climbing frame that forms part of Michael Vale’s set, wailing and roaring and scowling and trailing his fluffy grey mane and threatening cannibal excesses, only to be unmasked as an elegant African prince. That’s fine, as is the casting of the diminutive Lisa Hammond as the girl whose pluck and warmth succeed in releasing him. It’s refreshing to get a Beauty who hasn’t come from the lab where the Disney people mass-produce blonde, bland twiglets, but one who combines good looks with a doughty character.

Anyway, Hammond’s Beauty appears in the electric wheelchair that she apparently sometimes needs, yet she also walks, runs and even plays games of chase with her Beast. That’s fine, too, but since the monster’s re-education involves taking an empathetic trip in this contraption it does also suggest that the good people of Hammersmith are being taught to appreciate difference and respect disability.

It leaves one wondering if the gender-blind casting in Paul Hunter’s production – Beauty’s Dad a moustached Yolanda Vazquez and her sister Brioche a capering Nick Haverson – hasn’t its didactic purpose too.

Nevertheless, Hunter brings more than narrative clarity to the old story about the ageing bloke who picks a flower in the Beast’s garden, only to find that its price is his favourite daughter. There’s a good humour in his production that, even when Haverson’s Brioche and Hayley Carmichael as his/her sibling are exuding malicious glee, never goes too far over the top. This Beauty and the Beast is a play with music, not a panto, and a moderately enjoyable one.

Certainly, the children in the audience responded warmly to the scene in which Beauty and Javier Marzan as her dog Kronenbourg pass through a hostelry that’s run by a duck and includes a pig and chickens among its customers. But part of the dénouement is the German-named, French-accented mutt’s wedding to the clucking hostess, which means renaming the pub the Dog and Duck. Another little lesson here, this time about unconventional marriages? I rather suspect so.

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