Arabian Nights: Theatre Review
With a title like Arabian Nights I went to the Blue Elephant Theatre in Camberwell (yes, who knew there was a theatre in Camberwell?) unable to imagine that I was going to watch anything other than a pantomime version of Aladdin. But oh no I wasn’t! There was definitely no flying carpet budget in this minimalist, prop-less, physical comedy production from Hammer and Tongs Theatre.
If you ever watched Playdays as a child and remember the ‘Circus Stop’ then you are lucky because now you can fully picture the set. The theatre is an intimate space with twinkly lights on every wall and hundreds of Ikea cushions on every floor. Chic it may not be but cool and cosy it does very well. Before the audience was a brightly painted stage, a fashioned tent entrance from draped curtains and lovely bunting (any excuse for lovely bunting) and a very clever man with a guitar, a plastic bottle and a cup and saucer who will provide the entire soundtrack for this tight little play.
The play itself is a story about stories set in a far away land in a long ago time. The central story is about a king who has been burned by love and thus, as with all of us who have been burned by love, sets out to marry and kill a different woman every day for the rest of his life. Very reasonable.
Enter the heroine. This gutsy girl (with an incredible capacity for accents) sets her eye on a lasting marriage to the king by trusting in her ability to tell him stories and tales in order that she might distract him from enlisting Mrs Axe to knock her off. And this is the journey that the audience is taken on for most of the production, switching from the main narrative into fairy tales and folklore about genies and flying horses and princesses and talking animals and, um, sea merchants all brilliantly told by the five-piece cast.
It’s high energy, inventive stuff and the actors are top notch, each playing countless characters, animals and props in the one hour show. The play works because these guys can convince you at any one time they may be a prince who was turned into a monkey, a genie stuck in a bottle or a dog playing a cockerel. All of this is without a single prop yet it works brilliantly because of the excellence of the story telling in the contorted faces, funny voices and a laugh-out-loud script.
Admittedly the ‘story within a story’ thing requires the audience to be on the ball and this is not a production that tries to take you on any kind of journey. It is however geniusly crafted, very good fun, a bit of a giggle and an excellent reason to go out in Camberwell.
Why not go and see it for yourself? Check them out here: http://www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk/arabian-nights
Written by Fran Lechler
