I particularly liked the bit where tawny owls swooped across a red-lit sky, dangling an inch from the audience’s noses at the end of long rods. Though my own children dispute this, I think this fable would be more powerful without Mina, the home-taught, William Blake-quoting girl. The fact Michael allows her to join him in the adventure with Skellig gives the creature, too much external corroboration. It would be a greater test of Michael’s faith if he had to credit Skellig alone, besides leaving it mysteriously moot as to whether this being is principally a projection of his personal needs. But then is “angel” an accurate description of this baffling creature? It’s a question that is left tantalisingly open both in David Almond’s award-winning story, Skellig, and in this engaging but overly sentimental stage recreation, directed by Trevor Nunn as a piece of agile narrative theatre for the Young Vic’s celebrated Christmas slot.
Looking like a young Colin Welland playing a short-trousered schoolboy in Dennis Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills, Kevin Wathen is just right in the role of Michael, the Geordie lad who discovers Skellig in the garage of the new family home.

He gobbles spiders and raw mice and leaves owl-like droppings. Two suspicious humps bulge under the shoulder blades of his coat. His hygiene and dress sense would drive the What Not To Wear pair to early retirement So not the standard idea of an angel. It’s in this scene that the girl comes to appreciate that the word “duck” is directly related to “ducking”, a form of punitive immersion historically reserved for insubordinate women, and also a verb meaning to dodge, evade or (more tantalisingly) escape.To 10 January (020-7565 5100). His breath stinks He’s riddled with arthritis. Home life for both teenagers is an emotional wasteland of middle-aged corrosion, marginalised men and imperfectly hushed-up marital breakdown. The emotional claustrophobia of it leaves you gasping for air.

But never for a second does Feehily’s writing succumb to self-pity. In its combination of raw, clear-eyed honesty about a desolate urban landscape and comic resilience of spirit, the play reminds you, at times, of the work of the late Andrea Dunbar, another writer discovered and developed by Duck’s director, Max Stafford-Clark.His highly entertaining production responds to – and enhances – the speed, wit and vigour of the piece, conjuring up seedy nightclub bogs, mean streets and stifling domestic interiors with minimal props on a mostly bare stage.There’s a lovely droll and dark sequence where, in smooth succession, Cat is seen sharing a bath with her rich, dishonest lover and then with the boyfriend who, by premeditated degrees, turns from fondling to fury. Even her name, Cat – as she is known bySophie (Elaine Symons) – endows her with more cool, urban savvy than she actually possesses.The world presented here appears to be singularly devoid of suitable, let alone inspiring, role models. He is prepared to treat her like a trophy or a skivvy, often in comically quick rotation. As with Wedekind’s Lulu, male vanity reduces this girl to a blank screen and projects its clich?desires upon her. Instead of being patronised as Duck, she is insincerely venerated as Gina Lollobrigida by the rich, sixtysomething male author (the excellent Tony Rohr) who tempts her into selling herself to him for cash and for a temporary taste of how the other half lives. Beautifully played by the delectable Ruth Negga, the 19-year-old Cat waters the drinks and chats up the customers in the club owned by her brutish, jealous boyfriend, Mark (Karl Shiels), who has dubbed her Duck on account of her big feet.