SNOW Child was rehearsed in York last autumn but only now is this Tutti Frutti and York Theatre Royal co-production playing the De Grey Rooms ballroom. As it happens, the timing is perfect, coinciding with temperatures dropping to zero at last to match a play set in a winter world of snow and ice.

Playwright Emma Reeves has TV writing credits for Tracy Beaker Returns and CBBC's Eve and a West End stage adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather to her name and has now created a new, hour-long version of a Russian folk tale for three to eight year olds.

The cast of Mei Mac, Paula James and Mark Pearce break the ice with the children by playing Catch with "snowballs", and suitably warmed up, they glide into the story of a lonely childless couple so desperate for a child that they build a little girl out of snow. They hang a coat, hat and gloves on a tree, and magically the Snow Child comes alive.

So far, so happy, but Snow Child is different from other children; she is a wild daughter of the blizzards and the wind, a free spirit who eats only snow, does not need any sleep and talks with animals, especially the hungry-for-chickens Fox (a second role for Paula James, signified by a long ginger scarf with a white end). She craves independence, setting her at odds with her adoptive Mother (James) and Father (a guitar-playing Pearce), and yet she feels drawn to them too.

Whereas most versions of this tale are told from the parents' viewpoint, Emma Reeves has given the narrator's voice to the Snow Child, a voice of frustration at her parents wanting her to fit in when she wants to be herself. Yet Reeves still manages to present both sides of the story on the journey to becoming a family united by love.

Mei Mac is an enchanting, endearing Snow Child, curious, head strong but ever keen to learn, and her performance is full of expression and humour, her face a constantly changing canvas, to the delight of the young audience. James and Pearce are engaging company too as the parents who are equally on a learning curve, concerned that they might lose their child as the seasons change.

Wendy Harris directs with a lovely sense of the magical in a celebration of the power of both dreams and love; Oliver Birch has provided delightful songs and Kate Bunce's set design is a winter wonderland of snowflakes, whisked into the air by trees that turn into brushes. Miniature houses double as lanterns at the stage perimeter to complete the scene. Mei Mac lights up the stage even more.

Snow Child, Tutti Frutti/York Theatre Royal, De Grey Rooms Ballroom, York, until March 5, except Sunday, 11am and 1.30pm; Friday, 1.30pm and 6pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk