The Snow Queen Puppet Performance and Puppet Making Workshop

Paul Batten brings The Snow Queen to The Salisbury Museum on Sunday 6 December, a shadow puppet performance that doubles as a family afternoon. It starts at 1pm in the Museum Hall, with the show itself running about 40 minutes, followed by a 30- to 60-minute workshop where you get to make your own puppet.

The story is told through the eyes of the puppets Gerda and Kai. Kai sets out to rescue his sister from the Snow Queen's ice palace, meeting magical creatures along the way. It opens in a toy maker's workshop, where the toys he's making come to life to tell the tale, and Batten carries it through with puppets, changing scenery, music, and sound effects. When the performance finishes, the audience gets to meet the puppets and then make a character puppet of their own.

Batten is with Theatrix Arts, and the show has a track record that goes beyond Salisbury. One viewer, who saw it at The Lyric Theatre in London, called it a wonderful piece whose combination of simple shadow puppetry, storytelling, and music transported her four-year-old daughter and her 39-year-old self into a magical world. It's that kind of thing that works for the little ones but holds up for adults, too.

The venue is The Salisbury Museum at The King's House, 65 The Close, SP1 2EN. It's a registered charity and an accredited UK museum that holds the relics of Salisbury's ancient guilds and finds from Stonehenge, so if you've got a bit of time before or after, there's plenty to see around the building. Tickets are £8 for adults and £6 for children for museum members, and £8.50 and £6.50 for non-members. The whole thing kicks off at 1pm, so you're in and out by mid-afternoon.