Kneehigh take the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” and recreate it with a creativity and flair that overwhelm the potential horror of a fairytale that has parents’ abandoning their children in the wood. Shiplake’s drama students from all years enjoyed an exuberant production in Salisbury which turned Hansel into an encyclopaedia reading amiable half-wit and presents Gretel as the wannabe engineer, an inventor in goggles, who is a wily survivor.
It is Gretel’s ingenious use of levers and pulleys that ultimately saves the twins’ lives though it is sometimes difficult to see them as twins. They are a foot apart in height and the audience need the sneezes in unison to remind them that the boy and girl are in fact twins.
There is plenty of eccentric playfulness to the proceedings, which at times resembled a gigantic game of cat and mouse, to keep the narrative on the level of a production suitable for children rather than veering to the darker side. There was no doubt that it was a hit with Shiplake's Year 7. The witch has a maniac enthusiasm as she plans to make mine-meat of the children and then there are a couple of sweet baby-rabbits who almost take on the economy version of a Greek chorus.
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