But Tom Morris’s quirkily brilliant production of The Grinning Man fully justifies its transfer from Bristol. 

Hugo’s 1869 novel, The Man Who Laughs, tells of Grinpayne, a nobleman’s son, hideously mutilated by order of King James II. 

He is rescued by Ursus, a fairground huckster, and performs in a sideshow; at once horrifying and delighting spectators when he whips off his mask to reveal a face gashed into a rictus grin. 

Grinpayne’s combination of beauty and deformity attracts the attention of Josiana, a depraved duchess, who plans his seduction.  

When, in a series of melodramatic contrivances familiar to readers of Les Misérables and The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Grinpayne’s true identity is revealed he is obliged to marry her, even though his heart is set on his blind childhood companion Dea. 

Writer Carl Grose has filtered Hugo’s story through a lens that is part Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast and part Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. 

He turns Hugo’s fantasy version of James II into the wholly fantastical King Clarence II, complete with a trio of eccentric children in the royal palace at Catford. 

Downing Street becomes a 17thcentury red-light district and Trafalgar Square a giant fairground.  

His most inspired touch is to transform the physician, who in the novel arranges Grinpayne’s disfigurement, into a court jester (shades of Rigoletto), desperate for a noble title. 

He is played, quite brilliantly, by the gravel-voiced Julian Bleach, costumed like Richard O’Brien’s Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Show.

Hugo peppered his fiction with political comment and, indeed, wrote The Man Who Laughs while in exile from Napoleon III’s Second Empire. 

Grose cleverly updates Hugo’s social concerns.  

The Marxist message at the end might be a tad over-explicit, but King Clarence’s motto: “To them that have still more shall be given and to them that have not, the little they have shall be taken away” seems particularly pertinent in the age of Donald Trump.  

The Grinning Man finds its ideal director in Tom Morris, one of the creators of Warhorse, who once again combines a flair for intelligent stage spectacle with a gift for pathos. 

The versatile cast emerge from Jon Bausor’s richly tatty set to roam about the auditorium, with Grinpayne and Dea (Louis Maskell and Sanne den Besten, both excellent) almost kicking over this critic’s notepad as they fled over the tops of the seats. 

The songs, music by Tim Phillips and Marc Teitler, have an evocative hurdy-gurdy quality, with two compelling ballads for Josiana (the splendid Amanda Wilkin).  

Best of all is the puppetry, notably an awe-inspiring wolf, half-human and half-marionette. 

This is a gloriously enjoyable show and, although the dark themes, strong language and deviant sexuality (Grose has brought out the incestuous undertones of the original) may make it unsuitable for young children, it will be perfect for your inner child. 

Trafalgar Studios, London (Tickets 0844 871 7615/atgtickets.com; £22.50-£95)