Browse reviews

Camden Fringe 2009

Grimms

Con Chiaccio

Venue: The Roundhouse Studio Theatre

Festival:


Low Down

8 street urchins lead you through into the darkling world of the Brothers Grimm, delighting in all that theatre has to offer them and warming the cockles of all who will go with them – but watch out, they bite. 

Review

Con Chiaccio are an incredibly charming company formed of 10 graduates from Middlesex University whose macabre vaudevillian charm will win over even the most hardened London spirit.  In this performance 8 white faced goons revel in the dark imagination of the Brothers Grimm in a patchwork quilt of a show incorporating coral speaking, impassioned reenactments of fairy tale journeys and the odd random silent orchestra performance. 

 

Performed entirely within a cleverly constructed soundtrack which flips from Romanian folk to bizarre Renaissance classical strings with just the right dose of the sinister, they take you by the hand down several loopy passages and into a darkly vibrant performance of these classic tales of which Roald Dahl would be proud.  Whether they are the grizzly attacking bear, the brave soldier, the witless Hans, the sweetest house in all the forest or just 8 street urchin clowns, they work as one holistic being made up of 8 definite individuals.    

 

But at the heart of their work is the fact that there is something infinitely enrapturing about plain and truthful storytelling and Grimms is just that.  Delighting in all the theatrical tricks known to them they take each word and phrase from these old stories and play and tumble with them like lion cubs, never afraid to snap and bite at one another but never in danger of hunting alone.  They are children with the forethought of adults and with every sweet word and grin comes a knowing wink and a look of sin (sorry, didn’t mean that to rhyme) so that all the while one sees a bunch of innocents who know far too much about the world.  This makes them delectably attractive to go along with.  Give your soul over to Con Chiaccio for 45 minutes but watch out for it or a nimble devil may just grab it from you before their telling is out.

Running till 8th August.

Published

Show Website

www.camdenfringe.org 

www.conghiaccio.com/index.htm