MANY of us have gone through school thinking there is something a bit sinister about our head teacher.

But none of us could have come face to face with one as truly frightening as the head who gives his name to this fast and funny musical production.

This stage adaptation of the hugely successful children's novel by Gillian Cross kept the largely under-16s audience highly entertained last night.

And there was enough energy and sound coming from the stage to keep the attention of slightly older people like me.

The Demon Headmaster runs St Campions - "the league table champions" - like a military regime by employing a unique technique that might raise a few eyebrows at Ofsted. He hypnotises his pupils by staring at them with his green demon eyes!

Only a small number of pupils, thrown into the no hopers class 6Z, manage to avoid the powers and begin to hatch a plot to stop the head's sinister plan of taking over the whole world.

Much of the fun and energy is injected into the show by larger than life children's TV presenter Dave Benson Phillips, who plays an even larger than life children's TV presenter called Eddie Hair.

Eddie, wearing a purple wig and crazy shiny suit, has all the answers in his mad TV quiz show and is the hero of all the children who watch every week in adoration.

Star of the show was Sam Kenyon, who plays picked-on hapless pupil Harvey Hunter.

The best sequence of the show was Harvey's dream, when Eddie Hair and all of Harvey's friends gain special powers and Harvey becomes a hero.

The only criticism of the show is that it is perhaps a little long for some of the young people it is aimed at. As it nears 10pm on a school night some eyes were struggling to stay open until the end. MARK LONGBOTTOM

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