The Christmas Tree | The Hare and the Hedgehog (school performance)

The Fir Tree

The fairy tale that has arguably created the most famous literary tribute to the Christmas tree: ‘The Fir Tree’. A fairy tale about a tree that longs for the future and, in doing so, misses out on the present – a story that takes on a whole new meaning in these times of climate change.

Andersen tells the story of a career that could scarcely be portrayed more brutally:

An adolescent who mistakes the world of appearances for reality, who trades the present for a promise and realises that the promise offers no way back. The applause dies away, the decorations are taken down, the tree is banished to the loft – only when it lies there, worn out and forgotten, does it realise what the forest was.

The Hare and the Hedgehog

The classic par excellence, the original Grimm tale. This is how the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm taught us to make their fairy tales come true through play: by means of two actors, a stage no bigger than a beer mat, and a great love of literal detail. The original text is as sacred as the Bible and to be taken as seriously as a Shakespearean epic. What is written there is to be regarded as strict stage directions, even – and especially – when the hare races the hedgehog for a full 73 laps.

Who plays the hedgehog lady? And how, pray tell, does one credibly fall for the same cheap trick 73 times? Well, quite simply: with the help of the audience and with the greatest of pleasure – yes, we promise: Grimm-free on Fairy Tale Hill!

• School performance for children aged 4 and over