The Red Shoes
The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

THE RSC are taking no chances with the venue for their Stratford Christmas show this year.

Hans Christian Anderson’s gruesome fairy tale is as grim as any of those of the famous Brothers.

So while the main theatre plays safe with a box office cert, Twelfth Night, the more intimate Swan has been chosen for a show that might well give many a young child nightmares. Hence the publicised age warning for parents planning a family treat: “discretion recommended for under 12s.”

There is plenty of warning. The stage is bathed in red and even the balcony rails have been repainted, while an opening address suggests ominously that in fairy tales: “Everything turns out all right in the end. Doesn’t it?”

Nancy Harris’s new version updates the well-worked tale of the orphaned 16-year-old Karen becoming obsessed with a pair of enchanted red shoes which compel her to dance endlessly until, in despair, she chooses to have her feet cut off. 

Having dealt with the spoilers, there is plenty of humour in director and, notably, choreographer Kimberley Rampersad’s visually engaging production. 

Karen, beautifully danced and performed by Nikki Cheung, is traumatised by the death of her mother. She is fostered by Bob and Mariella Nugent, a social climbing couple who treat her reluctantly as a symbol of their charitable concerns within the bourgeoise community.

Wife Mariella (Diana Pilkington) is vulgarly obsessed with her appearance in her magic mirror — a borrowing from Snow White – while husband Bob (James Doherty) is a builder or “purveyor of properties,” as he prefers. They are proud of their weird son, the axe-wielding Clive (Joseph Edwards) whose main activity is acquiring and stuffing dead animals.

There are scenes of wild hilarity as when Karen is forced to show off her new shoes at the dinner party Mariella has arranged for members of the Save the Orphans Foundation, and takes off in a manic tango which, to his wife’s horror, involves the initially reluctant Bob.

The play moves with Karen between her two worlds: that of the pretentious Nugents and her magical experiences both in the ball (a borrowing from Cinderella), where the Prince is enamoured with her dancing, and the threatening forest.  

After the nightmarish shadow play of the amputation, there is no happy ending to send us on our way although as she again dances on her prosthetic feet we are encouraged to “write your own ending.”

As theatre always engages with the world outside, this interesting, at times entertaining, treatment of an old tale, sits uneasily with our daily television news of maimed Palestinian children in the hell of Gaza.

Plays until January 19. Box office: 01789 331-111, rsc.org.uk.