Fiona Maddocks [The Observer, Sunday 14 December 2008]

Trouble should be in the air the moment the tipsy husband lurches in greeting his wife with ‘Hello Mother’, then jumps on top of her while the children are gnawing the furniture next door. You can throw all of Freud at the hungry household of Hänsel und Gretel, where dysfunction rules and the Brothers Grimm are at their darkest.