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:

18 September 2002

Note: The following review dates from September 2001 and an earlier tour of this production.

Emma Rice directs her own adaptation of The Red Shoes from the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. But forget sickly sweet versions involving delicate red satin ballet pumps, for Kneehigh returns us brutally to the gory, grisly intentions of the original.

It’s a story of obsession and temptation, forbidden fruit and eternal retribution, narrated by Lady Lydia Giles King, a tawdrily glamorous creature who asks if we can resist our own obsessions and desires.

A poor orphan girl becomes the protegé of a blind, wealthy Old Lady John Surman, who insists that The Girl Bec Applebee is brought up in modesty and humility, wearing only black as befits her station.

The Shoemaker Luis Santiago, makes her a pair of blood-red tap-dancing clogs (actually designed by Vivienne Westwood). By deceiving The Old Lady and succumbing to her longing to possess...

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Latest User Review

anonymous - 22 October 2010:

AMAZING. I would reccomend it to anyone who is brave. It is truly terrifying. Not for children with an F word and plenty of gore....

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