fairy tales
Would we welcome bears in Britain again?
With rewilding projects multiplying worldwide, brown, black and grizzly bears are making a bold comeback. But how much bear can we bear?
The good stepmother
Jean entertains her young stepdaughter Leah with drawings and fairy stories – but the two grow sadly estranged in this haunting novel with its own fairy-tale similarities
A topsy-turvy world: Peaces, by Helen Oyeyemi, reviewed
At a village train station in deepest Kent two men and their pet mongoose are setting off on their honeymoon.…
Clive Rowe is astonishing: Hackney Empire's Jack and the Beanstalk reviewed
Jack and the Beanstalk is a big, sprawling family show that opens with a baffling gesture. A booming voiceover announces…
Children’s books for all ages: the best of 2021
She’s done it again: J.K. Rowling has written a captivating children’s book. The Christmas Pig(Little Brown, £20) is about a…
Glib and snarky: Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella, at Gillian Lynne Theatre, reviewed
It’s a rum beast the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Cinderella is set in Belleville, a European city of 18th-century…
Unhappy blend of melodrama and allegory: Southwark Playhouse’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice reviewed
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a musical fantasy set in a Nordic town near the Arctic circle. Johan is a magician…
Pity the poor stepmother — the most reviled character in folk literature
Fairy stories were not originally aimed at children, and we do not know what the first audience responses were; but…
Grimms’ fairy tales: the hardcore version
Child murder, domestic slavery, abusive families, cannibalism and intergenerational hatred — what could be better for the festive fireside than…
