FOR as long as they have existed the arts have always provoked thoughts, conversations and emotions.

They have also acted as a bridge between cultures, and this has never been clearer than when traditional Indianan theatre met western fairy-tale at The Haymarket on Thursday, 5 October.

The Kala Chethena Kathakali Company brought their adaptation of Snow White to the Basingstoke theatre and received a standing ovation.

This 300 year-old form of dance-theatre from Kerala, India, on the surface is full of bright colours and outrageous costumes, but dig deeper and its subtle and beautiful.

With a cast of eight people, four of which provided the musical score, they managed to fill the whole stage with their presence.

The actors themselves, don’t really speak and rely on hand gestures and the beat of the drums to tell the story.

At its heart the story retains several of the basic plot details - a reflection that tells the truth, a beautiful princess sent into the forest to be killed, a deer's heart brought back, a wicked queen disguised and a poisoned apple given - enabling the audience to follow the tale, despite being new to the story-telling techniques of the performers.

A wicked queen (Kottakal Devadas), a beautiful princess (Kalamandalam Vijayakumar), a prince who eventually comes to the rescue (Kalamandalam Balasubramanian), a wicked servant who is redeemed (Kalamandalam Soman) all play their role in this traditional tale.

But it is the queen and the servant, who bring this light relief in what is a very serious performance with the odd yelp and high pitch scream.

The strangeness of the rhythmic music and singing, together with the idea that the actors are interpreting the song for the audience through a series of hand gestures and facial expression, does require an audience to pay attention to every moment.

But the real stand out of the performance is the timing of every moment, the effortlessness the actors react to the rhythm of the drum is seamless and really grabs the focus.

Going into this performance I was full on intrigue, but left felling cultured and wish to delve more into this art form.