Before the play had even begun, the cast was in distress; their script for the perfect fairytale play had gone missing! The resulting solution was a semi-improvised cabaret of musical theatre tunes. However, the songs were secondary to the weaving of an imaginative fantasy world, created through suggestions from the audience, all prompted by the percussive ting of a triangle.
Delightfully engaging for its audience, ranging from young children to adults, Papaver Productions has created a lovely showcase for the talents of its small but mighty cast from Cambridge. Julia DaCosta was a sympathetic protagonist, Toby Trusted a flamboyant antagonist and Sydney Nguyen a fourth-wall-breaking accompanist, also the show’s Music Director. A fourth deus ex machina character was represented by a jaunty human-sized frog puppet, manipulated by Trusted.
Everyone involved was clearly enjoying themselves. The storytelling was punctuated with musical theatre tunes with slightly altered lyrics. DaCosta shone vocally, with a particularly strong rendition of ‘Watch What Happens’ from Newsies. She also used her naturally expressive features to great effect, making her character one viewers could easily empathise with. Trusted demonstrated great skill in a range of accents and had a memorable physicality onstage: a simultaneously fluid and frenetic energy. Nguyen spent most of the show behind a keyboard draped with a banner with the show’s title. Her musical contributions, including compositions by Ariella Gordon, were a seamless part of the production, however the most delightful moments were when she broke character to react to the comedy around her.
Confidently directed by Georgina Brown, the performance clearly had a structure which made the whole experience feel like watching a choose-your-own-adventure book come to life. Attention had clearly been paid to the performance quality of the songs within the show, however the experience shone most when the improvisational skills of the actors were on display, such as when Trusted provided a voice-over to DaCosta’s mimed gestures. The visuals of the show were simple and effective. Overhead lighting changed colours to reflect an appropriate atmosphere. The massive frog puppet was extremely characterful, with crown askew and long limbs which suited Trusted’s puppeteering. The cast’s costumes coordinated, with everyone in a green garment.
Due to its improvisational elements, every performance is unique, collaborative and highly silly. On the day I attended, it was set in a forest of blue velvet cheese trees, with a castle called Steve. The show has embraced as its motto “Maximum Whimsy”, a perfect descriptor of its light-hearted, wholesome nature.
However, there were points where the song selections felt shoehorned into the rest of the production. For example, “Therapy” from “tick tick…BOOM!”, was introduced with the idea of sending the characters to therapy, but this was explored no further in the narrative. In other instances, the integration of the songs flowed more naturally, although there was an occasional jarring lyric left unchanged from its original source material.
The moments where the performers had the ability to alter the words in their songs were some of the most entertaining. Sadly, the final night of its run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe has now concluded. Overall, this was a delightful celebration of levity, childhood innocence and the joy of making things up as you go along.
How to Fix a Fairytale ran from 25th-29th August at the Mint Studio in Greenside George Street (The Royal Society of Edinburgh).
Theatre Scotland 
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