★★★★☆ Tobacco Factory Theatres and Circomedia have joined forces to show three highlights of the 2016 BE Festival. This annual summer festival takes place at Birmingham REP and specialises in presenting unconventional work from Europe that defies easy categorisation.

★★★★☆ In this age of ‘alternative facts’ and fake news, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory could not have chosen a more apt play to update than Tartuffe. There occasional references to specific current issues, such as Brexit and Trump, but it is the play as a whole that has a very relevant message for our times.

A prosaic description of this remarkable puppet would tell you that it is constructed from cane, leather and aluminium, that it weighs about 50 kilos, and that it is operated by three puppeteers. When it is stationary it is very obviously a puppet, for much of its supportive framework is visible, as are the puppeteers themselves. It does not have the kind of realism we would see in, say, an equestrian statue.