Talk about selective memory. Whenever you hear the words ‘Hansel & Gretel’, the first image that pops into your head is a house made out of delectable sweets. ‘How nice. What fun. Let’s take the children along - they’re sure to love it!’It’s only once you’ve taken your seat in the theatre and examined the set that the true horror of the original fairytale comes back to you. Most traditional children’s stories have their darker moments, but Hansel & Gretel is as black as it gets, with themes of child abuse, neglect, infanticide, abandonment and cannibalism. How do you relate this Grimm tale to the kids without giving them nightmares?Quite simply, you hand them sweets. If you’re trying to entice kids along to your show, free candy is the best way to go about it. In today’s plaque-busting, thrice-daily-brushing society, such bribery may be morally suspect, but it certainly does the trick. ‘Free sweets’ proclaims the poster leading up the stairs to the venue. ‘Draw your favourite sweet’ announces the blackboard outside. If there turns out be nothing more saccharine than clementines and dried nuts, there are going to be a lot of sad faces in the audience.Thankfully, Hansel & Gretel doesn’t disappoint, providing sweets and all-round entertainment in equal measure. There are a few jokes for the adults, but for the most part this is a show that is written predominately for kids. Us grown-ups get crude stand-up comedy and 5am drinking during the Fringe. It’s only fair that our progeny should get to stuff their faces with boiled sweets. At the end of this charming production, the rotting effect of the complimentary candy is obviated by the tubes of free toothpaste that are handed out, to a collective sigh of relief from middle-class parents. This is Edinburgh after all.
