Following a successful run this time last year, The Good Neighbour returns to take 6 – 11 year olds and their families on an interactive adventure through the beautiful Battersea Arts Centre. We’re ushered into the large Council Chamber as a group of over 100 people, and there meet George Neighbour and his accomplice Monique. George is afraid of heights and of windows and he doesn’t like Christmas, but has no idea why he has these feelings; he doesn’t know why he’s here, has no memories, no life story that he can recall. Divided into small groups, we are matched with a guide (we had a pithy and charming Alexandra Donnachie) and tasked with finding his story.

Creative director Sarah Golding has joined forces with a variety of performance makers and artists to create magical and enchanting close-up performances and atmospheric installations that give us clues to the mystery of George Neighbour’s story. We twist our way up and down staircases and tiptoe in and out of corridors to avoid being heard, before arriving at doors where we knock three times before discovering the treasures on the other side.

Bryony Kimmings’ Kablooey! is a hilarious tale of a woman getting stuck to the wall along with all of the items of her flat. Beautifully designed by David Curtis-Ring and buoyantly performed by Tara Boland, in this piece we learn that laughter is the best medicine. Next we crawl on all fours into Kazuko Hohki’s beehive, in which Hohki tells the simple yet enchanting story of a bee protecting her nest before falling asleep forever. Most captivating is Kirsty Harris & Matthew Blake’s Momentarium: a room filled with glowing jars of water precariously balancing on each other, with drapes flowing endlessly above our heads. Matthew Cusick plays the world’s first ever Momentologist: a man who collects peoples’ memories in these jars. The drapes hold water that house our memories – the water drips gently through the fabric into Cusick’s jars of memories. Picking up one of the jars he holds it above the light and a person’s life is projected onto the drapes, as if shining directly out of the lid. It’s an enchanting image of childhood Christmases, running along beaches, family laughter. What a wonderfully uplifting and thoughtful sentiment to offer The Good Neighbour’s young audience: don’t be afraid to fill your jar with memories upon memories upon memories.

Elsewhere Sheila Ghelani, Abi Conway, Ruth Paton and Golding, with BAC’s senior producer Richard Duffy, offer us other enchanting experiences that are not afraid to steer well clear of traditional festive fare and challenge their audience to think about what is important in life. It’s frustrating that George Neighbour’s story, the frame of the piece, is slightly underwhelming and far less inventive and bewitching than the individual commissions. Nevertheless, it’s an ambitious and thoroughly enjoyable experience that will no doubt delight and excite hundreds of children this festive season.