How do you tell a story? What is the right answer? What’s the next thing that should happen? It’s subtle, but at the heart of Forced Entertainment’s first ever show for children, the company continues probing into what makes something entertaining. And, as ever, they don’t play down to their audience, challenging us to work hard with them.

It works. The crowd in the Barbican’s Pit Theatre were almost unanimously silent for the seventy minutes of serene storytelling. There was no gurning or high-pitched voices from performers Richard Lowdon and Cathy Noden (the cast rotate between five Forced Entertainment company members over the run). They are very much adults, Cathy dressed fashionably in a deep blue silk dress and Richard in green velvet jacket. There’s a hint of festiveness with a tinsel-like bow on the back of Cathy’s dress, and a deep red wall of curtains adorning the stage but if it’s a Christmas romp you’re after you’d better look elsewhere. Instead, Richard and Cathy tell us a tale of a little girl – well, actually a drawing of a little girl in a book – and her search for a spider throughout the rooms of the possible impossible house. The story itself is a simple tale of adventure. What Forced Entertainment cleverly offer is that we are the protagonist throughout the story. Richard tells us “You go through the corridors, and there you find a book, with a drawing of a little girl.” It is our very own escapade.

Cathy sits behind a table full of objects and a microphone, soundtracking the story by chomping on celery, laying her head on the Casio keyboard and shaking boxes of peas. The tale is beautifully animated by artist Vlatka Horvat and director Tim Etchells, a mixture of photographs and surreal hand-drawn animations projected onto large strips of cardboard boxes. There’s a rhinoceros, a donkey, a glorious ballroom, a band of soldiers practicing a dance routine, spooky corridors and a large hole – why would you put a hole in a story?! Cathy and Richard charmingly interrupt each other, questioning what will happen next, why that element of the story exists, interrogating its purpose.

But of course, anything can happen in any story… and that little nugget of possibility and impossibility are what make this show so relevant. In an age where two-year-olds can use iPads without thinking twice and we are encouraged to take the easy option, Forced Entertainment suggest that taking a bit more time, a bit of a risk, and potentially concentrating a little bit harder could indeed reap wonderful benefits. Who knows what story we could come up with? What an affirmative thought this festive season… I’m certain plenty of children who are lucky enough to enter the The Possible Impossible House will have some exciting, surreal stories of their own having been immersed in the Forced Entertainment world.