A baker, a witch and a boy with a cow walk into the woods. It sounds like the set-up to a dodgy Christmas cracker joke, but plenty of Londoners already know how this one ends, given Jordan Fein’s lavish revival of Sondheim’s subversive fairytale musical Into the Woods spent last year packing out the Bridge and hoovering up Oliviers. Now it’s crossed the river to the Noël Coward with a mostly new cast, and it’s every bit as good. 

Sondheim and book writer James Lapine throw Cinderella, Jack, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood into the same forest as a childless baker and his wife, and then ask what happens after ‘happily ever after.’ It’s the show’s first West End run since 1991, and if your only previous encounter with it is Meryl Streep and James Corden on Disney+, you’re in for a much stranger night. 

Kate Fleetwood is back as the Witch and she owns every inch of stage. She first appears looking thoroughly fed up, like the cynical aunt you only see at Christmas who’s had beef with your parents for decades. She stands on the kitchen table barking orders at the Baker and his Wife, then sprawls across the counter to finish the job, lounging as if she’s on a sunbed while they scurry about beneath her. The Baker and his Wife are petrified, but Fleetwood keeps slipping in moments where she’s a bit ridiculous, even a bit sad, and those are what makes her more memorable than a panto baddie. 

John Dagleish and Laura Pitt-Pulford are new as the Baker and his Wife, and they’re a lovely match. Their voices are beautiful together, which is never a given with a stage couple, and their duet ‘It Takes Two’ is a real high point of the show. Even when Sondheim has everyone singing over the top of each other in rounds, you can still make out every word. 

Gracie McGonigal returns as Little Red Riding Hood and is still a joy, full of youthful cockiness, the kind of girl who’d square up to a wolf and fancy her chances. Speaking of which, Matthew Seadon-Young’s Wolf isn’t on stage for long but makes every second count. He struts on, sassy and flamboyant, and spends their whole exchange looking her up and down like he’s reading a dessert menu. Everyone can see he can’t wait to eat her except Red. You’ll want to knock him out.

Seadon-Young doubles as Cinderella’s Prince, and alongside Lucas Koch’s Prince (Rapunzel’s) he delivers the funniest number of the night. ‘Agony’ becomes a full-blown chad-off, two royals out-preening each other over the women they're supposedly pining for while running into each other’s arms and gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. It has the blokey bromance energy of two rugby lads who adore each other but would swear blind there’s nothing in it.

But what really sets this production apart is how it moves. Tom Scutt’s design fills the stage with trees, and the cast pop in and out of them so smoothly that it feels like you’re truly following them through a forest. One minute you’re watching the Baker by a trunk, the next Cinderella bursts out from behind another, dishevelled from running. The musical links between scenes, where the title refrain comes back round and characters appear one by one to deliver a single line, never missing a beat. You’re barely waiting for the story to move on, because you’re too busy watching who'll pop out from behind the next tree. 

It’s a wordy, fiddly, nearly three-hour musical about fairytales, and somehow it flies by. It’s only here until January, so make sure to pop out to the Noël Coward before it vanishes back into the trees for another generation.