Great things could be expected from the OUDS, and especially when filling out the same space in which they mesmerised audiences with last year's adapatation of The Master and Margarita, this year, taking French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's fable of a crash-landing in the desert and the magical Prince who appears to the pilot and tells him strange stories of his life and his travels to earth.
Instead of aiming for a dry retelling of the story, the company have the audience arranged on chairs and cushions in a wide circle where the cast play as children in the centre. These children are then asked by the narrator to help him tell the story of the Prince. The tale is told in fragments between questions asked by the children and achieves an air of magic and electricity which captivates and enthralls. Even in choosing to disregard the more adult allegories of the story, the production is still a very moving and fascinating piece of theatre, if slightly drawn out and a little fragmentary, as is the original source material.