A duck meets Death, they drink tea, swim in a pond, climb a tree. The seasons change. The duck dies. Death lays a tulip by her body. Duck, Death and the Tulip. That’s all: no more. It seems slight, almost still; and, in spite of the dialogue, this play has a wordless, dream-like quality.

The set is starkly minimalist: blackness presided over alternately by a marigold sun or a luminous, lace moon. Death, the one human presence on stage, and the puppet Duck are brightly spot-lit, which renders them pearlescent. A scene of light and dark for a tale of life and death.

Such simplicity feels almost shocking. In a society which acts as if it believes that the young must be offered sensory stimulation at every moment of every day, only a brave children’s show dispenses with flashes, bangs, songs and bright colours. In foregoing these the Little Dog Barking Theatre stays true to the spareness of German author Wolf Erlbruch’s original story as well as showing an unusual respect for its young audience – who repay this in abundance with their spellbound silence.

Duck, Death and the Tulip has something of the mythic quality of Raymond Brigg’s The Snowman, and like it deals with eternal themes of love and death in a way that children can understand and accept. An unusual and tender piece of children’s theatre.