When a small, lost bear from deepest, darkest Peru arrives in London in search of a new home, a chance encounter with the Brown family leads him to the wonderful world of Windsor Gardens.

To give it to you straight, it’s a paint-by-numbers kids’ megamusical about loving people regardless of their differences - but a relentlessly charming one, and the investment in surprising stage elements really pays off (perhaps peaking a bit early, firing on all cylinders in “Don’t Touch That,” which you can probably accurately summarize without seeing the show). Jacqueline Hughes makes a pitch-perfect villain (and turns out to be an understudy!), and Bonnie Langford is (no surprise) a complete scene-stealer. I grinned the whole way looking at the bear, which feels like a feat of stagecraft even as it comes to life using the same techniques as “Star Wars” and “The Dark Crystal” 45 years ago, which is to say an animatronic hood is placed on a performer of suitable stature (understudy Hassan Taj at our show, who breathed a lot of life into the marmalade fiend). The West End’s answer to “The Lion King” that is far more likely to be running in its current form in 30 years than to ever be revived under some other vision - your enjoyment of the show will be inversely proportional to your level of cynicism about corporate art