The Unicorn's big Christmas show is a strange mix of old-fashioned and new-fangled. It starts out stately, picks up interest, then goes a bit bonkers in the second half. It's too well played to be dull, exactly. But while Rosy Fordham's adaptation bursts with ideas, it's a draft or two away from making them coherent.

This Beauty is the daughter of Russian royalty who have fled to Edwardian London. As ever, a bad fairy stepmother gets huffy about not being invited to the christening and sentences her to 100 years asleep. But Princess Aurora is a free spirit who recoils at the idea of getting woken by a kiss from just any old prince: “Bleeurgh! What happens if I don't like him?”

So she spends the second act, while supposedly confined to a tower in Tower Bridge, looking for her true love. She hop-scotches through the 20th century with her bad fairy Carabosse, eventually returning to the briar-covered Southwark home she once shared with her parents.

The cast of seven play it heartily.Géhane Strehler is a flighty but endearing Aurora, Samantha Adams is charismatic as Carabosse. But they're asked to change tone so much that the story gets jumbled. The first act's old-fashioned chamber piece turns into the second act's empowerment fantasy, but the join is awkward and the new rules are hard to fathom.

We're even asked to care for Carabosse: “How many evil stepmothers do you see settling down and living happily ever after?” she laments. Yet you'd trade this sophisticated self-commentary for more clarity. Rosamund Hutt's production is atmospheric, with good piano music, a pretty set and some touching moments. But children and adults alike will end up as confused as they are charmed.

Box office: 020-7645 0560 toJan 24

Editor's choice

• Alicia Keys lets rip
• Streep and Baldwin get complicated
• Guy Ritchie on Sherlock Holmes