Gulliver's Travels

Synopsis

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Gulliver awakes on the shores of Lilliput to a hostile reception from its feisty six-inch tall residents. At war with their neighbours, the tiny Lilliputians soon find a use for their gigantic visitor - a weapon of massive destruction! Refusing to be part of their plans for conquest, Gulliver flees across the oceans, only to end up abandoned among giants. Now small and vulnerable, he faces danger at every turn. Swift's classic tale takes us on a fantastical adventure through exotic, yet strangely familiar lands - nations ruled by corrupt governments, flying islands inhabited by intellectuals, kings and queens of every size, and a world ruled by horses...

Our Review:

20 August 2012

As international directors go, Silviu Purcărete has enjoyed a rather longer and more fruitful relationship with the Edinburgh International Festival than many. Plainly his brand of sumptuous stage-pictures and lavish set-pieces hit the spot for a lot of theatre-goers and critics alike.

However, while it's impossible to dispute that the man can sling together an impressive looking show, it's slightly harder to discern in this case the whys and wherefores of his having done so.

Whilst called Gulliver's Travels, what Purcărete offers here is a largely wordless assemblage of a good many of 1700s-satirist Jonathan Swift's greatest hits. I'm pretty sure there's a big nod to A Modest Proposal in there (the one where he suggests poor Irish folk should sell their children as food for the rich), alongside various hacked-up elements from Gulliver.

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