The Fisherman and His Wife | Rumpelstiltskin

IN GERMAN

The Fisherman and His Wife

They once lived in an old hut and couldn’t seem to get anywhere. Well, where else could they go!? “My dear, doesn’t Ilsebill want things the way I do?” – Surely that sort of thing couldn’t happen to the audience. This ancient, eccentric and crude tale of greedy insatiability? It has nothing to do with you. So why does it move you so much? What if it were actually possible: ever further, ever higher, ever bigger! And yet ever more dissatisfied. When is it time to stop dreaming, when suddenly every dream is within reach? ‘Once upon a time…’ becomes ‘here and now’. Aren’t we all a bit like Ilsebill?

Rumpelstiltskin

Oh, how good it is that nobody knows … Just like the title of this fairy tale. For who, pray tell, is this completely over-the-top creature who suddenly appears, entirely uninvited, in the miller’s daughter’s dark chamber? Who, for heaven’s sake, transforms this dungeon into a stage of international calibre within seconds? Goodness, it’s on the tip of your tongue. But it’s also enough to drive you mad: just when you’ve succeeded, everyone’s shouting ‘More!’ from all sides. And so the beautiful miller’s daughter spins straw into gold and weeps, and spins, and weeps, and spins. The king – this Grimm-esque Scrooge McDuck – actually demands more and more. In her utter desperation, the miller’s daughter promises her firstborn to the lost little man who rushes to her rescue. It’s just a shame that nobody knows his name! For without it, she’ll never see her little one again.

Will she get her child back in the end? Well, that depends entirely on how carefully the audience has studied the programme.

• Fairy tales for EVERYONE – suitable for ages 4 and over