Stories Alive

Pleasance Courtyard

06/08/18

We’re all familiar with Grimm’s fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and Rumplestiltskin, but what if they were a little more fair than fairy? In his show Grimm’s Fairer Tales, Eden Ballantyne of Stories Alive sets out to tell more feminist versions of the brothers Grimm’s classic tales.

Starting with an exciting version of Red Riding Hood, called Red the Killer of Wolves, Ballantyne brings a number of children (and sometimes grown-ups) onto the stage to help him tell the story. The three stories that make up the show, Red Riding Hood, a version of Hansel and Gretel in which the titular characters are 30 years old and their parents abandon them at a job centre, and a version of Rumplestiltskin in which marriage isn’t a foregone conclusion and the women of the village are the heroes of the story, all present an updated twist on the classics for a 21^st century audience.

Grimm’s Fairer Tales is an engaging and entertaining show, which delights the children and adults in the audience alike. Throughout the piece, the whole audience is given opportunities to get involved if they want to, and Ballantyne’s enthusiastic and attentive style of storytelling draws the whole room into the tale. Grimm’s Fairer Tales will make you laugh your socks off, at the same time as asking questions about women and girls’ roles in classic fairy tales. A charming and lively hour of storytelling, Grimm’s Fairer Tales is worth a watch!

Grimm’s Fairer Tales runs at Pleasance Courtyard until August 27^th as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.