Raucous, rowdy and rambunctious, balletLORENT's Rumpelstiltskin explodes over the stage in cascades of straw and sequins. It's not your average family show in that it really is for the entire family: the inventiveness of the costumes and business and the darker resonances of the rebooted storyline make this captivating for adults as well as for the most fidgety five year old. The central twist on the classic fairy-tale is that Rumpelstiltskin is in fact the king's son, disowned from birth. His naming thereby takes on an entirely different urgency, standing for his need for recognition and inclusion.
The third in balletLORENT's fairy-tale trilogy, the show boasts a star-studded production team: scenario by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, costumes from Michele Clapton (Game of Thrones) and music by Murray Gold (Doctor Who, Life Story). The narrative seemed to me to be the weakest part of the ensemble: certain seem a little unpolished and lack the support of fairy-tale logic (why does his dead mother give Rumpelstiltskin the ability to spin gold? Surely other gifts would have been more useful to this love-starved child?). The music, on the other hand, is compelling and characterful, and fits the lively choreography like a point shoe. And Michele Clapton's costumes and Phil Eddolls' sets and props are terrific: whirling tatters and rippling glitter, straw pom-poms, scene-stealing sheep, a cardboard castle suddenly strong enough to support an acrobat, a love scene played on a dream-enormous spinning wheel...
A remarkable feature of the show is the incorporation of some non-professional players into the ensemble as part of its Participation and Performance Programme: four senior citizens and eight children in each touring location are fully included in the whole action of the story-telling. This lends the production an indefinably festive, joyful, barn-dance air which amplifies the rustic vivacity of the production.
The choreography is a rapid-fire mix of everything from morris to hip-hop, with a base of contemporary, a dollop of circus, a splash of classical ballet and even a nod to tap. The entire ensemble have wonderfully well-developed characters: every move comes supported by the sort of motivation developed in serious workshopping. Natalie Trewinnard gives an athletic and appealing performance as the healthy country lass trapped into queenhood, and both Auden Danely and Gavin Coward, as the young and adult Rumpelstiltskin respectively, express a beautifully-matched forlorn vulnerability and fey energy. Virginia Scudeletti brought some beautiful movement to the brief role of the ill-fated flowerchild Queen, and Toby Fitzgibbons is delightfully sympathetic as the hapless Shepherd. John Kendale as the King was frankly terrifying, though I expect less so to children, for whom he is a monster held safely in a story, than to adults, who will pick up on his sad echoes of human monsters.
It's a short show, two forty-minute acts, with a recorded narration of the story which is printed in its entirety in the programme, a lovely touch if you want to remember it with a child. It's something between ballet, panto, mumming and musical theatre, and, for anyone who loves stories and spectacle, well worth seeing.
