Saturday, August 11, 2012

Grim(m) - Unreal Stories for Real Times

I was delighted to win (in a Twitter competition) a pair of tickets to a show of my choice at Greenside (Venue 231 at Edinburgh Fringe Festival). After browsing the excellent programme, we decided to see Grim(m) - Unreal Stories for Real Times. This show, by the excellent Scottish-German storytelling company Louna Productions, is one hour of dark, surreal retellings of Grimm's tales, interwoven with Scottish folk tales.

Storytellers / actors Anna Lehr and Louisa Thornton narrate all the stories and play all the roles, slipping seamlessly from old queen to young boy to old woodcutter to weaver and back again. They have a very engaging style, with a sly humour that pervades even the darkest elements of the stories. The weird undercurrents of violence and obsession with baking people into black puddings comes directly from the Grimm Brothers and pervade all the stories that interweave through this compelling and darkly magical show. 

There are wonderful moments too, my favourite being a young boy's unexpected reaction to two funerals. I won't spoil the moment by saying any more....

The staging is excellent, good lighting, fun costumes and props. The venue in fact is overall, excellent (except the chairs are a bit uncomfortable!). The venue also has a cafe, which I've heard serves excellent chocolate muffins, but we were too late arriving to have time for coffee, unfortunately!

Grim(m) - Unreal Stories for Real Times - showing at Greenside, 10pm tonight is the last show!

Greenside are giving away tickets to one new Twitter follower every day, so if you're on Twitter, please follow GreensideVenue.





2 comments:

eileeninmd said...

Sounds nice! You have been lucky at winning things lately.

Tom said...

First time at the fringe and this was the first show I saw....thought it was fantastic :) I could have sat there and listened all night.