An entertaining hour of fairy tales drawn from Hans Christian Andersens collection. Familiar favourites like The Ugly Duckling, The Emperors New Clothes, The Steadfast Tin Soldier join with lesser known ones such as The Nightingale and The Shadow to form a cohesive collage.Flattering Panda, the company behind this show, is to be commended for exploring different theatrical techniques to tell these stories. The array is impressive. The tale of The Ugly Duckling starts off as a Jackanory-type retelling, with glove puppets appearing behind a raised screen. When the puppeteers heads appear as well, they make the audience howl with laughter. The puppet theatre then transforms into a shadow theatre screen for The Shadow, a drawing canvas for The Nightingale, a doorway for The Steadfast Tin Soldier.Theres a surprise around every corner and a laugh behind every comic scene.Its a shame that Flattering Panda chose to use live music scored for violin, cello and electric piano which Ill be kind here just sounded amateurish and drowned the performers voices in places. It would have been better to invest money spent on instruments, scoring, and performers accommodation on getting a recorded soundtrack done more professionally. The disparity in quality between theatrical and musical performance was disturbing.
