Having made the mistake of walking out of Sunday in the Park With George some years ago (which I grew to love) I've always felt I owed Stephen Sondheim. The staccato rhythm and rhyme of his music was drummed into my head from an early age by my mother, so I was educated in the ways of the maestro who some embrace as musical theatre's answer to Pinter. Into The Woods was first shown in 1986 and with the intertwined fairy stories of The Brothers Grimm as its theme could never date and looks magical on a big screen where adults and children of a musical disposition can enjoy it. It's a wonderful ensemble piece with James Corden as The Baker and the delightfully tuneful and expressive Emily Blunt as his childless wife.

Together, the couple - who I believe in a former incarnation were happy to settle for a Gingerbread Man - set out to break a curse of infertility that has been placed on them by the witch who lives next-door.

The reasons for this I've no space to go into, but suffice it to say she also stole the baker's younger sister Rapunzel, so she is seriously nasty and Meryl Streep gives her an evil streak to rival that of Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz. The presence of Anna Kendrick as Cinderella reassured my seven-year-old there was still hope in fairy land – only there really isn't.

Granted, the blood-bath which saw the demise of almost every Grimm character in the stage show does not happen in the film, but the survival rate is low for a Disney production.

As the director of Chicago and Nine, Rob Marshall has once again made the most of the score and his gifted cast and you'll leave humming the moral of the tale: "Careful the things you say: Children Will Listen" which, for good reason, is Into The Woods' most memorable song.