26 Aug 2010
The Songbird, Royal Botanic Gardens ****; The Night Keeper, Hill Street Theatre ***; Arabian Nights, Scottish Storytelling Centre ***
Three lost tales of Scheherazade are on offer in Arabian Nights, above, along with a bountiful array of strikingly artful puppets, props and scenery.
Andy Lawrence is such an absorbing storyteller – affable, whimsical, with a twinkle of roguish humour – that you’d cheerfully listen to him just yarning of tricksters and gullible fools, and poor men whose quick wits save them from evil genies. But Lawrence seemingly isn’t content just to paint with words. He and the Theatre of Widdershins have come up with sumptuous miniature sets that see the bazaars and buildings of Baghdad and Samarkand emerge, appropriately, from within books.
There’s not a video graphic in sight, just good old-fashioned storytelling and puppetry that sees an hour simply speed past.
Turn up early, or linger on at the Scottish Storytelling Centre afterwards – there’s a beguiling ‘hands-on’ installation beside the cafe where little fingers can open doors or search inside nooks to discover more of the stuff of stories.
