TWO actors and a lovely dark haired puppet, about the size of a senior infant, enact the story of Lizzie, a narky little girl who flees her circle of friends, only to find loneliness and longing. Her quest for happiness is interrupted by little parables about hens and swallows, honesty and pride.

Mari Rhian Owen, who wrote the play, is also the main performer, ably abetted by the fresh faced and musical Ryland Teifi. Throughout Sunday's first performance one had the feeling it might have sounded better in its original Welsh; nonetheless, the play stayed remarkably attuned, for its 50 minute length, to a young audience that sometimes risked getting underfoot.

Excitingly, Over tile Stone marks the first use of the Ark's second floor gallery as performance space. Audience memhers took off their shoes and gathered with the actors in a small rectangle marked out by mats and muslin curtains, an instant theatre"; its magic was attenuated only by the low ceiling and the lighting which that entailed.