THERE’S evil afoot in Grimm City. With cunning disguises, magnifying glasses and a briefcase full of breadcrumbs, a team of folklore friends come together to solve these nursery rhyme crimes.

It might not be the story of Hansel and Gretel you're familiar with but this is Theatr Clwyd at Christmas so what did you expect?

Based on the traditional Brothers Grimm tale, Hansel & Gretel: Fairytale Detectives will be performed in promenade through 26 different spaces within the theatre. Studios, workshops, dressing rooms and cupboards will be transformed into magical worlds for audiences to explore with the professional cast joined by a company of 21 community actors from the area.

"This year we attacked the idea of doing Hansel and Gretal and we thought we'd come at it from quite a different perspective," laughs director and writer Joe Bunce, of Paperfinch Theatre, who are visiting Mold for the third time this year after 2017's The Snow Queen and 2016's Nutcracker.

"In the past we've followed the original story quite closely but this year we've taken it in a new direction where Hansel and Gretel enlist the audience to dust for prints, don disguises, crack codes and chase down suspects through the dark city streets of a film noir metropolis full of fairytale characters."

Based in Sheffield, Paperfinch specialise in interactive, immersive shows where the whole audience, young and old, become integral parts of the action.

"During the last few weeks of The Snow Queen's run we were having meetings and conversations about what could possibly be next and generally we think of the title and then go on from there.

"We like to build strange and familiar worlds that are multi-layered and endlessly creative and our smallest shows take place in one room, and our largest shows can take over a whole building. This year we're using 27 individual rooms and spaces which ranges from the studios to the theatre and also includes dressing rooms, the set building workshop and even the backstage area of the pantomime. We've really sprawled across the building as widely as we could this year and as a result we've got this disorientating, large city to explore."

Don't you ever just want to direct a normal production? One that takes place on the one stage?

"There are some fraught moments where we think we definitely could have made this easier for ourselves," says Joe. "But it's a show that is essentially written on spreadsheets and flow charts before we write any words. It's like creating a video game: we think about it as these different journeys and routes you can take.

"As we are coming back to Theatr Clwyd for the third time, we were aware that we have people who come every year and even come several times a year, so we wanted to keep innovating and keep going with this idea that theatre is a place where anything could happen and where it could be an extension of a child's imagination. It's somewhere the impossible can become possible."

With humpty cracking, Rapunzel in a tangle and Weasel going pop without a trace there's enough references to traditional fairytales to keep the adults happy and Joe is keen that audiences of all ages enjoy Paperfinch's productions.

"There's something really special about seeing a family group playing together in the same way," he says. "I love to observe it - it's the most pure level of play we see between families where you see adults committed to the same story and adventure that the children are.

"There's music, the set design, the costumes, dance, stories, puzzles and games that are all incorporated into the performance and hopefully there'll be something there for every individual child and adult to enjoy."

So with the company preparing for their third magical run at Theatr Clwyd will we see a fourth fairy tale adaptation coming to Mold in 2019?

"I think this place has quite a unique environment of 'can-doism'," adds Joe. "At the moment Theatr Clwyd has three different Christmas shows, one of which is in 27 rooms and one is a pantomime which is the biggest they've done in a long time. The fact they're willing to take on that challenge and embrace it and still work to make it as excellent as they can is quite remarkable and a totally different attitude to some other theatres around the country who stick to their patch and never stray. So yeah, I'm very much in love with Theatr Clwyd and hope our relationship with them will continue in the future."