I habitually skipped over Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl in my childhood fairy tale compendium because I couldn't bear the sadness (see also: The Happy Prince *sob*).

Kids today eh? Eh? Ask them what they want to be and they’ll probably reply, “famous” or “rich.” I mean, really… what do they aspire to? What do they want? Wearable tech and a free pass to the Boot Camp stage of The X Factor at a guess. Tell you what, let's ask five-year-old Emily. "Emily, what do you want to be when you grow up?" "A jelly maker. A pencil sharpener!" Ooooooookay. I wasn’t expecting that. Good answer. I hope, one day, she achieves her dream. For now though, she and her band of knee-high humans are too busy restoring my faith in humanity.

Back in 1949, Britten’s Let’s Make an Opera, with its enduring second part The Little Sweep, blazed a trail for children’s opera in Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall. Little has changed about this generously-sized village institute – a funding appeal for much-needed renovations is under way – and Jenni Wake-Walker’s Jubilee Opera is still waving the banner for music education with works that make the right sort of demands. The Drummer Boy of Waterloo, marking the bicentenary of that most famous of battles, is the latest.

Although The Tribe is disquieting, seeing it at home rather than experiencing the full immersion of a cinema screening raises questions of what gives it its impact. theartsdesk’s review coinciding with the theatrical release pinpointed what makes director Miroslav Slaboshpitskiy’s strange Ukrainian film tick: from its use of sign language to its commentary on Ukraine. But are there individual stylistic elements which leap out as signifiers of its singularity?

Once upon a time... Storytelling is an integral part of all human cultures, and a central pillar of an enlightened education. Some children get the hang of it quickly – they are, as the phrase has it, natural storytellers. This week the Royal Court introduces several youthful writers with Primetime, a series of short plays written by primary school children between the ages of eight and 11.

Somewhere in rural Italy around the border of Umbria-Lazio and Tuscany, a family is trying to make the best of trying circumstances. Their mainstay is the production of honey. They have sheep. There are blackberries on their land. But money is short. Despite the fact that her irascible German father Wolfgang is seemingly in charge, it’s actually 12-year-old Gelsomina who runs the show. The Wonders is told from her point of view: the perspective of a child with three younger sisters forced to grow up and take on responsibilities for which she has no training.

Musicals are cheesy by nature, aren’t they? If not cheesy, then picturesque. The cast of Les Mis may be grimy and poor, but they’re picture-postcard poor. Even modern musicals play by the rules.

When least expected, comedy has come stumbling into the work of French auteur Bruno Dumont. In his seven films to date, from the Cannes-winning Humanité of 1999 through to the stark Camille Claudel 1915 from two years ago, the director, frequently working with non-professional actors, has marked out a distinctive territory defined by its bleakness and emotional intensity.

I must have been one of the few in Saturday’s audience for Richard Ayres’s new opera who had never seen Barrie’s play or read the book, so I’m unable to judge how faithfully it renders the original – in case that matters. Somehow one knows the dramatis personae: Peter Pan himself, the Darling family, Nana the dog-nurse, Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily and of course the ticking crocodile, who swallowed Hook’s watch along with his arm. They are all here, wittily, sometimes brilliantly, reimagined in Keith Warner’s panto-like staging.

The Royal Court has had a makeover. Recently, the walls have had a fresh coat of paint and huge messages have appeared on them: the front doors now say, “Come In”. (Oh, thanks for telling me...) Inside, there are so many arrows pointing you to the stalls, circle and bar that sometimes it seems like these places are harder than ever to find. In the foyer, you can read a wall message about the need for fundraising, facts about how big audiences were last year, and how many watched a show in school (a measly 2500).