JULIA Donaldson and Alex Scheffler’s picture-book story takes only five minutes to read, but Tall Stories have spun the yarn into a 50-minute musical marvel.

This touring show last played the Grand Opera House in July 2006, and another stream of young children is ready to watch Mouse take a journey into the deep, dark wood. Shed Seven guitarist Paul Banks and family could be spotted yesterday afternoon: there’s nothing too cool for pre-school about this show!

Alex Tregear’s West Country-voiced Mouse is immediately endearing as a plucky sprite with canny, audience-cajoling ways of avoiding the mouths of David Garrud’s humorous trio of broadly-drawn predators: a Cockney geezer Fox in country tweeds, a Royal Air Force flying ace Owl and a mad Mexican Snake.

To defy them, heroic Mouse conjures the imaginary character of the Gruffalo, who turns out to be not so much scary-monster animal killer as big softie in need of lunch to munch.

Understudying for Scott Armstrong (who will return today), Jonathan Lum puts the Lum into lumbering as the Gruffalo ambles almost amiably around the stage, never too gruff to frighten the children.

Sharing narrator’s duties, Lum and particularly Garrud have fun with a script whose knowing comic edge appeals to the adults and gives Toby Mitchell’s production a winning quirkiness.

James Whiteside’s lighting plays on the fear of the dark wood, while the cast makes ample use of the trees in Isla Shaw’s woodland design as hiding places, adding to the sense of nature at work, unrest and play.

The Gruffalo, Tall Stories, Grand Opera House, York, today at 11am and 1.30pm. Box office: 0844 847 2322.