Les Grooms' Threepenny Ring Cycle. Les Grooms, Threepenny Ring Cycle, Downton Leisure Centre

IF someone had told me I was going to sit on a carpet in a tent and listen to Wagner's Ring Cycle, albeit condensed to 90 minutes, and be mesmerised, I would not have believed it.

There are not enough adjectives to describe this amazing event, because French street theatre company Les Grooms was simply brilliant, mixing music, comedy and improvisation to produce this amazing piece of visual theatre. Children from as young as seven rubbed shoulders with more elderly members of the audience, it was a family show cutting across all age barriers.

All four of Wagner's Ring Cycle operas, normally totalling 16 hours, were distilled using brass band, percussion, puppetry, three remarkable singers and an ensemble whose versatility was matchless.

The scene was set as troupe members guided groups to their patch of carpet or stool, giving a digested version of the story as a taster. A narrow gangway down the middle of the tent served as the Rhine and members of the audience became willing volunteers assigned the task of working the spotlights or being plucked to play Gunther and Gutrune.

Five minutes in and we were four hours into the opera already. But this was not ramshackle, it totally worked, the three singers leaping between the audience on to six platforms.

Plenty of inventive touches included tubas doubling as giants, a drainpipe mimicking the water of the Rhine and the battle scene orchestrated as a boxing ring.

Brnnhilde returns the ring to the Rhine, setting in motion the apocalyptic finale, which was inspirational as the tent collapsed (after the audience had been guided out of it), and the cast recreated the waves of the Rhine by lying underneath it. The audience was by now standing around the perimeter, spellbound.

The effusive applause put a new slant on the term standing ovation, thoroughly deserved. This ranks as a highlight of this year's festival. More of the same next year, please. - Anne Morris.