CHRIS THURMAN: Adults cling to plot of gold despite snakes and foxes
Children thrive on the reassuring structure of repetition and ritual, but they also thrill at the innovation art can facilitate
"Dad, they changed the story!" Fair complaint, I thought. But was it a complaint? The smile on my son’s face suggested otherwise. We had just emerged from Daphne Kuhn’s Auto & General Theatre on the Square into the afternoon Sandton sunshine. We had been in the deep dark wood of The Gruffalo, with the Mouse, the Fox, the Owl, the Snake and the least terrifying monster in the pantheon of children’s literature. These are characters that parents of young children know well. Too well, in fact. And their kids know this generation-defining book inside out: every word of Julia Donaldson’s rhyming couplets, every detail of Axel Scheffler’s illustrations. So they tend to notice if you mess with the story – which is exactly what happens in the stage musical version developed by British children’s theatre company Tall Stories. The show has now been produced in SA by the National Arts Festival. Under the expert direction of Tara Notcutt, the roles are nimbly rotated between Ayanda Nondlwana, No...
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