Popular they may be, but promenade productions can often seem like butter scraped over too much bread.

Staged in Stanmer village and the surrounding parkland, this particular piece of landscape theatre has seen family-friendly company WildWorks enlist the skills and stimulate the creative juices of the local community.

And before they encourage the making of any more crafty curios to decorate the route, perhaps they should ask one of the resident farmers for a few tips on cattle herding.

On Thursday some 300 punters gather outside Stanmer House under the setting sun to join physically in Orpheus' quest to rescue Eurydice from the Underworld.

While I have no difficulty in believing in the afterlife as a sort of mismanaged refugee camp, the affable "guides" do little to ensure this overlarge group keeps pace with the action or understands what to do in the more interactive sections.

And what looked like being a thrilling chase ("Let's go!" cried several young audience members at the entrance to the Underworld when Hades informed us that Eurydice had just passed through "Gate 61 B") turns out to be more of a fireworks night procession minus the fireworks.

Mapped on to Stanmer village, WildWorks' Underworld is a cross between a living advent calendar and Wicker Man weirdness, as some villagers wave merrily to us from the windows of fairy-light decked cottages and others participate in surreal tableau, dining in their gardens with dummies for dates or watering a car from whose roof sprouts real turf.

But ironically it is the section inside Hades' palace of memories (a snoopers' paradise of donated nick-knacks), which works best dramatically.

Under the cavernous roof of the barn the atmosphere sharpens, the dialogue can finally be heard, and Hades and Persephone waltz to the live band and choir as tiny, spiralling spotlights replace the night sky.

Community theatre is usually more enjoyable for the creative participant than the unallied spectator, and WildWorks' admirable groundwork involving residents ensures there are plenty of smiling faces.

But I often feel abandoned by the production, as too seem many of the characters. The festival brochure has it under "Performance" rather than "Theatre". I'd say Souterrain is more of a pleasantly sensual shambles.

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