Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Müller’s Tales of Wonder
Tim Honnef / Jonas Müller
Genre: Experimental, Solo Performance, Storytelling, Theatre
Venue: Assembly Rooms
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Deceptively simple, Müller’s Tales of Wonder ultimately spins a fascinating narrative web. Though its more homespun aspects and neglected stagecraft represent missed opportunities, all the elements are in place for this to become a solid and intriguing piece of experimental theatre.
Review
A thread of gentle sweetness runs through Müller’s Tales of Wonder, so pure and steady that it consistently pulls you back to appreciation. There are issues with the production, to be sure, but it would take only modest changes for this odd but beguiling work to bloom.
The narrator of the tale sits at a desk with a radio. A rack holding books and a few items “of wonder” related to the stories – some toy monkeys; a boat – is next to him; there is nothing else. He begins with a tender ode to stories, and the effect is immediately relaxing, evoking the pleasures of being read to.
And then the problems begin. The narrator rushes his delivery. His accent is strong, and, combined with the speed of his words, it is difficult to understand and absorb the short stories. The narrator then moves from reading the little books that hold the stories to a larger manuscript. A moment of panic might cross your mind at this point, as you wonder whether the show consists of the writer reading drafts of his charming but puzzling work.
I would like to reassure you that it is does not. Or rather, that it contains much more than that.
As the stories begin to build up layers, their clever callbacks and interrelations bind them to each other to form an interlocking structure. Repetition is used effectively: each iteration arrives like a wave – never exactly the same twice – carrying a little more, or slightly different, emotion and meaning each time.
One of the more interesting devices is the blurring between fiction and reality: is the narrator Tim Honnef? Or Jonas Müller? Are they the same person? Is Mia real? Is the narrator acting, with his nervousness and self-deprecating jokes about audience size?
The answer to the last question is probably “no,” but, even if that isn’t correct, I do wonder what a different and more confident voice might bring to the story. When the narrator slows his pace, as he settles into the telling, the change is out-sized; the words spring to life. Honnef brings enormous likeability to his role, with his uncertainty and playfulness, but the production might be enhanced with a more serious approach. A professional narrator and some attention to visuals in the staging – as things are, little would be lost by turning the piece into a radio play – would sharpen the focus and impact.
The answer to the other questions above, however, is: it doesn’t matter. Either this story is a sincere ode, or a marvelous invention with Fargo-like claim to truth-telling, but both versions work. It’s the not-knowing, the suspension in between the two states of being – or, in the narrator’s beautiful words, being “halfway to the destination but far from the end” – that leave the audience in a very real and undeniable state of wonder by the production’s final moments.
