EVERY show starts with an itch, says Kneehigh Theatre’s website.

In writing his “re-telling” of the fairytale Hansel and Gretel, the itch for Carl Grose was the darkness.

“It’s a really great, dark, scary story,” says the playwright.

“The original tale still has this profound power.

“You look at it and go ‘my god, it’s a show about parents that abandon their children and an old woman that tries to eat them’.”

Given that it is intended as a family show, he has tried to bring out this bleakness, while ensuring it is suitable for children.

“It’s hopefully a really good mix of dark and light,” he says.

“We’ve been very careful with the tone.

“The big model for it was Roald Dahl – you’re reading his stories about these extreme characters and you can’t quite believe you’re reading a kids book

“But kids do have their own barometers on things and it’s often the adults who are more scared.”

Typically for the Cornwall-based theatre company, which Grose describes as “an anarchic, extreme troop of storytellers”, the unfortunate siblings do not live in a candy-coloured world but in a strange place filled with bizarre inventions.

“Mike (Shepherd – Kneehigh’s joint artistic director) was very drawn to the idea of a world that’s on the edge so we’ve done away with the candy house and instead it’s very rustic and basic and the family are very hungry,” says Grose, who joined Kneehigh as an apprentice 15 years ago.

“There are parallels that we’ve tried to pull out with now, with desperate times.”