AGELESS STORYTELLING

Old Mr. Boon's aged a lot since last year's Big Time Last Chance Quiz Show 2011.  Clutching his walking stick in his dressing gown and cheesecutter, he snoozes away in his chair as we take our seats. 

Eventually in his own good time he starts awake and welcomes us "to the future!" and in his inimitably bumbling, now also geriatric (and slightly narcoleptic to boot), fashion he explains his intention to show us the history of storytelling through the ages.  In particular, those tales of great heroism, romance and most of all magic!, that we call Fairy Tales.

Thanks to unintentionally inducing a timely magical event upon himself, Mr. Boon is transformed to at least at least half the age he began as we head right back to the dawn of civilization, where the first storytellers apparently wore tiger skin gowns and headbands, and regaled captive audiences around campfires about their exploits and those of – and told to them by – their forefathers, and so on. 

His 'mammoth-hunting adventure' sample may be an early precursor to self-promoting embellishment but doesn't meet the supernatural criteria of fairy tales.  Fast-forwarding to medieval times, a humorous, less than flattering portrayal of a court jester illustrates the early days of fantastical epic dramatised storytelling.

Then we arrive at the classics, which tends to mean the Grimm brothers, utilising the stage left tall black puppet-theatre booth for a somewhat Germanic rendition of Hansel and Gretel.  Follow that, a rousing ukelele version of Jack and the Beanstalk and finally a (comparatively) elaborately staged, generically classic ending, The Wedding! …in which Boon the princess – yes that's right – fixes to marry someone's Dad, the handsome prince, with the help of an appropriately gushy script. 

Young and old alike, the audience are all smiles as we exit, and my son (the eight year-old from the Christmas 2010 Theatreview quote on Boon's poster, which we only spotted afterwards) scribbled one short sentence for me on my note pad: "He's really funny!" Indeed, and may he be so for ever after, or at least the remainder of the season.   

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