A simple but very creative adaption of the Brothers Grimm fairytale, The Elves and the Shoemaker is KidzStuff Theatre for Children’s school holiday production.

A shoemaker Gordon (Jonathan Price) advertises for helpers to assist him making fancy shoes.

Along come Pilly (Drew Brown) and Filly (Comfrey Saunders) who have just finished working on Sir Peter Jackson’s movies and are looking for employment. Although they don’t know how to actually make fancy shoes they convince Gordon to hire them which he does. Then, with the help of their friends Boffin the Baker (Johanna Cosgrove) and Flora the Florist (Jonathan Price) they make really decorative pairs of shoes which pleases Gordon very much. [More] 

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Elves looking for work in the wake of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies is an excellent starting point for Rachel Henry’s adaptation of the Brothers Grimm* tale. Pilly and Filly – whose real Elvish names are much, much longer – left their North Pole jobs with Santa Claus to work for Peter Jackson and they like New Zealand so much they want to stay. They have even acquired good Kiwi accents, which is as it should be.

In the original story, a poor cobbler and his wife are given to selfless acts of humanity with their meagre resources, and are therefore rewarded through the elves’ interventions (until the elves are inadvertently freed from servitude, leaving the cobblers to build their business on their own).

In Henry’s version, Gordon (Jonathan Price) of Gordon’s Sensible Shoe Emporium, is an excellent craftsman but doesn’t know how to make fancy shoes so he advertises. Enter Pilly (Drew Brown) and Filly (Comfrey Saunders) – and much classic interactive fun arises from them trying to find Gordon and vice versa.

The Elves’ eagerness to score the job exceeds their expertise, so they fudge their credentials then have to enlist the help of friends: Boffin the Baker (Johanna Cosgrove) and Flora the Florist (Price) …

The customers for the fancy shoes are all played by Cosgrove: Lady Adeline Aubrey who just loves the Loafers, so recommends the Emporium to Countess de Comfy who fall for the floral footwear, so tells her friend Sylvia Sole who happens to be the editor of Simply Splendid Shoes.

Her shoes are made from something Henry – and Pilly and Filly, who make these ones – have guessed will always be called out when the kids are asked what they like most. And the process by which the shoes are made involves interactive action songs which the youngsters happy leap up to perform.

What firmly places the play in the fairy story realm is that the first two really rich customers pay triple and quadruple the asking price for their fancy shoes (which is a remnant of the original tale). As for the sensible shoes, Sylvia thrills at the excellence of George’s craftsmanship so his work will also take pride of place in her promised feature article.

This, along with Pilly coming clean on their subterfuge and how they got help, ensured the play’s values are sound. It’s a quite wordy play but it engages the target audience and, as directed by Sherilee Kahui, it proceeds apace.  

Special credit to George, Pilly and Filly for working off what the children call out even if it means a slight modification to the script.

*As usual the source material isn’t credited which I think is a shame, if not somewhat lacking in integrity. Sure it’s a free adaptation. Even so, when trading on a well-known title it does seem fair to acknowledge the origins.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer