I am a director's and acting team's nightmare audience member. I usually turn up to a performance not having read the publicity material, the programme, or the script and I expect the performance team to do all the work of making characters come to life and involving me in their dilemmas and intrigues. Montgomeryshire Youth Theatre didn't disappoint with Peer Gynt - they were fantastic!

From the moment they came on stage, every member of the huge cast created and maintained a great stage presence. I felt secure and happy knowing that I could relax into the performance and trust the delivery, action, and the quality of the ensemble playing. The pace of Peer Gynt's exploits and episodes never flagged. I found out afterwards that the performance was nearly two hours but it flew like Peer's fantasy of riding a reindeer over the Gendin Ridge.

I?m full of admiration for Ginny Graham the director, Penny Jones the assistant director, and over thirty members of the cast for their realization of this ambitious, poetic script. All made a huge commitment to a complex script. This was the first time the intermediate and senior groups worked together on a major production. Ginny Graham is a highly skilled dramaturg as well as director. She adapted parts and wrote a lively prologue which showed Peer Gynt as a child being challenged and shunned by other school children for his boasts and 'lies'. This prepared the way for his adult fantasies and adventures and gave the younger members of the cast their chance to shine, though they had many important roles throughout, most notably as malevolent trolls in the scene with the Dovre King and as amplifying chorus and crowds.

I was intrigued by the decision to have four actors play role of the adult Peer Gynt. It was easy to adjust to the shifts because each Peer put on a red scarf to signify the role. This sharing out of the 'star' role worked superbly to keep the acting fresh and fitted the many facets of Peer Gynt?s mercurial character as he ventures through inner space, underworlds and various over-worlds: homesteads, mountains, forests, and oceans.

It was a huge relief not to have the strains of Grieg blasting over the sound system. More subtle, original, music composed by Iris Gordijn, and performed by skilled musicians and singers within the cast gave the play a more timeless, and hauntingly 'everyman' feel. The music served the play rather than hijacking it.

The set was starkly simple. I think any attempt at elaborate, 'realistic' scenery would have failed to convey the multiplicity of impossible locations that Peer Gynt travels to and diminished the emphasis on words. Simple, minimal, props like the Button-Moulder's ladle were better for such an impressionistic play. Atmosphere and spectacle was evoked dynamically and physically by the performers as agents of scenery. In carefully choreographed sequences, they manipulated long, filmy, cloths: black ones to depict the darkness of the Boyg encounter, lots of blue and green ones for the shipwreck and a blue one for the dream sequence. This was much more visually exciting and liberating than even the most impressively painted flats. The performers were the source of all excitement and energy. It was an excellent production.