Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales

Arriving at Chesil Theatre is always a pleasure and the warm welcome we receive is a testament to this great little theatre. We had seen that this was going to be delivered "in the round" and given that this is a converted 11th century church, I was interested. Wow. They had stripped all the seating and staging (normally as you would expect to find) and turned the whole floor into the acting area, with the seats (all eighty of them) in banks of three around the entire performance area. The entire theatre was decorated like a woodland scene and with very subtle yet effective lighting, gave and eerie feel that you were totally involved. Great credit here to the set design team of David James and Mike Robinson plus the whole plethora of set construction meant this worked on every level.

There are four tales, The Juniper Tree, The Three Little Men in the Woods, Thousandfurs and Three Snake Leaves, and the stories were played out by the entire cast over two acts. Costumes were very good, all very medieval and "forestry" and the makeup that accompanied was of a very high class. It gave each of the actors a fantastic ability to develop and sell to the audience their individual characters. The diction (as I have come to expect) was of a first class delivery, every word, accent and nuance was just perfect. Again you'd have been forgiven if you thought this was a professional group. They are a first class example of amateur theatre at its finest.

Well done Chesil a fantastic production that will live in the memory for a very long time.

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