The Red Shoes

Synopsis

Our heroine can't resist her red shoes. They make her dance with delight, prance with possibilities. But what happens when she can t get them off? What happens when she can t stop dancing? She dances past life and love, sex and death and at last turns to the executioner to rid her of her heart-stopping beautiful red shoes. This is a dark circus, a cracked cabaret where anything is possible and nothing is probable. Music to make your toes tap, images to make your mouth water and a story to make your heart pound, the magnificent and menacing world of the fairy tale is revealed.

Our Review:

8 August 2009

Norfox Young People's Theatre Company have taken on a challenge with this dark fable based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

You know that this is not going to be a traditional version of the story, as soon as you hear the narrator's chatty opening dialogue, including admonishments about mobile phones and noisy sweet wrappers. This is going to be more original and entertaining than that.

A cast of twenty fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds play everyone from the children to the elderly of the village. Most of them play at least two different characters. However, both the narrator and the heroine Ana are the exceptions to this and are both excellently done by the young actresses.

The rest of the cast show a variety of skills and abilities, but all are capable of producing convincing performances. Liz Postlethwaite, who also adapted the play, directs her young cast into creating not only moments of pathos but also moments of comedy with aplomb that many...

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