Monster Wars, which is being presented in association with The Body Festival, offers up an inventive family-friendly good-versus-evil story in a creative fairytale setting. The world is being terrorised by a wicked Destroyer – a frightening spider-like creature (a performer on stilts) with a lethal gaze – and a brave warrior Queen is looking for a way to defeat it and restore her kingdom. With the help of the audience – spirits from another world – she calls upon a wanderer from between the worlds to help her, but the charming Hunter she conjures (initially) appears to be more interested in playing his recorder and goofing off than picking up a weapon.

The strengths of this piece are its costumes, its world-building and its quirky, energetic characters. The Destroyer looks like something straight out of The Dark Crystal, and an acrobatic ten-legged fuzzy Caterpillar who arrives to help was a favourite with younger members of the audience, although I was never entirely sure of its real narrative purpose. The determined sword-wielding Queen and the goofy, enthusiastic Hunter complement one another well. The set invokes a storybook world that was once rich and lush but that is now dying and distressed – that is, a world in need of a hero. 

However, there is enormous scope for further character and plot development. The piece’s narrative isn’t really driven by its characters’ decisions, and I often find the action to be a bit unfocused. There are some obvious connections that could be explored in much greater depth; for instance, the battle-hardened Queen’s reliance on brute strength and the Destroyer’s overwhelming rage are both offset and mellowed by the Hunter’s strategic use of music, but this does not lead to any self-reflection or any meaningful change beyond a pretty straight-forward resolution of the immediate danger. 

I genuinely enjoy this production, and it is received fairly well by the audience, but I feel that it would be a much more satisfying piece of storytelling if it were driven by the desires and choices of the characters and less by the need to fulfil certain plot points.

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