WELCOME to the adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, Toad... and Bird.

Bird? The name is Bird, Dick Bird, and he is the inspired designer for Ian Brown's wonderful evocation of the riverbank world of The Wind In The Willows.

Bird's verdant set design is so good it is a character in itself, and you wish for a return to the velvet days of theatre when the set would receive the first ripple of applause. Perhaps this modern age of open-plan auditoriums with no stage curtain has robbed theatres of that moment of hidden magic, but magic soon spreads through Brown's production like the morning sun across a meadow.

In the broad acres of the Quarry Theatre, Bird has constructed a tree-lined revolving set with grassy hillocks beneath a big sky, as the Wild Wood leads down to the water's edge with its banks of bull rushes.

Instead of water - "Water isn't good on stage because it doesn't flow, and a bit of stagnant water doesn't really do it for me!" says Brown - Bird has created a watery sheen, enhanced by the lighting effects of Neil Austin.

To facilitate Rat (Ben Fox) and Mole (Christopher Pizzey) messing about on the river, the revolving set sets Rat's boat in motion.

Likewise, that revolution enables Bird to transform the scene from the riverbank to Rat or Mole's abode with a 180-degree turn.

Brown, who was first hooked on Kenneth Grahame's book at the age of six, uses the ever-popular adaptation by Leeds playwright Alan Bennett, an adaptation whose momentum lies in the action.

All is richly detailed, both in text and presentation, and so the 90-minute first half is almost too luxurious. There is so much to take in: marvellous country-attire costumes by Stephen Snell and Bird; songs and seasonal music played by actor-musicians rigged out as squirrels, hedgehogs and other woodland folk; that constantly changing, inventive set; Toad's smoke-emitting car, the little model steam train, the big steam train... I could go on.

All the while the enchanting story is unfolding with painterly care and attention and visual wit, allied to the contrasting pace set by the leisurely Rat and Mole and the brusque Badger (Cameron Blakely) and speeding, noisy, vainglorious Toad (Malcolm Scates).

The 60-minute second half is quicker in every way, and not only in the madcap chase through the audience, and the performances bloom and prosper. Skates's Toad is a toad to the mottled markings on his head; Pizzey, Fox and Blakely all delight; and at every opportunity Dominic Green's depressed Albert The Horse steals scenes with his glum Brummie accent. You would be hopping mad to miss Toad and this woodland wonder.

Box office: 0113 213 7700.

Updated: 09:48 Thursday, December 18, 2003