DanceEast, Ipswich
This colourful quest story is stylishly simplified for a young audience and an energetic cast of just four, choreographed by Luca Silvestrini to a melodious Frank Moon score

One of the things that’s so successful about this all-ages version of The Magic Flute is the way it effortlessly synthesises all of its ingredients – dance, text, operatic arias and a dreamy-folky reinterpretation of Mozart’s score – in service to the story. And that famously fantastically convoluted narrative is presented clearly enough for everyone to understand (recommended age is five-plus, and it’s delightful for grownups too).

Papageno the bird catcher is played with bags of personality by the brilliant Nathan Bartman, he’s cheeky and big-hearted with more than enough warm energy to fill the stage. Prince Tamino (Jacob Lang) is his more earnest foil, and the choreography sends them both in easy arcs, lilting and circling across the stage as they set off to find Princess Pamina (Faith Prendergast). Multitalented soprano Donna Lennard, meanwhile, swaps between roles, as comfortable landing the leaping notes of the Queen of the Night’s famous Der Hölle Rache aria, as she is dancing or making winking asides to the audience.

Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
This adaptation of the beloved tale about an ogre looks beautiful but does not grow into a giant to rival the company’s hit Roald Dahl musical

The Royal Shakespeare Company is named for its house dramatist but – since its global hit Matilda: The Musical premiered in Stratford-upon-Avon 15 winters ago – Roald Dahl has helped keep it solvent enough to do Shakespeare. An adaptation of Dahl’s 1982 book about a counter-intuitive ogre who befriends an orphan is a hoped-for Christmas gift to the coffers of an organisation making budget-trimming job cuts.

But, where Matilda was always confidently a comedy musical, The BFG feels stylistically to be juggling different shows. Adapted by Tom Wells with additional material from dramaturg Jenny Worton, the show has a strand of spoken drama, somewhat reminiscent of Sue Townsend’s The Queen and I, with a quasi-Elizabeth II, sweetly played by Helena Lymbery, saving the nation with child superhero helpers.

Punchdrunk Enrichment Stores, London
This gentle and generous piece of immersive theatre combines captivating storytelling with moments of wonder

We’re on our way to see Fireside Tales and my five-year-old son, Benji, is full of questions. Will the fire be real? Where will we sit? Luckily, it doesn’t take long for Benji’s anxiety to settle. Punchdrunk Enrichment’s new show has, like its predecessors, been created with schools, communities and children in mind. It’s a gentle and generous piece of immersive theatre – one that often, quite literally, takes the children by their hands and invites them to become part of the story.

To start off, we’re invited to browse the “bookstore”, crammed full of intriguing trinkets to touch and play with. Anxiety quelled and curiosity piqued, it’s time to enter the Punchdrunk Enrichment store where the show proper begins. And what a store it is, designed with immaculate attention to detail by Mydd Pharo. The shelves spill over with quirky objects; clusters of feathers, boxes of globes, bundles of photos, twinkling lava lamps and dusty typewriters.