Eliza and the Wild Swans
Sometimes
Christmas can feel too much. There’s so much expectation on everyone to have
fun and everyone has their own idea of what that fun looks like.
This Christmas is the first I’ve spent in my own home, my boyfriend cooked me and his mum a beautiful Christmas lunch and we all nodded off into the lovely books we got for Christmas. There was no false jollity. We had planned to play games like Scrabble and Charades but we were all perfectly content.
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean we should be content with what always happens. What makes Christmas exhausting and inevitably bland is all the stuff that is imposed on us. The need to consume as much as we can as if we’re mice going into hibernation for half the year or the incessant harping of Christmas music at you from the radio and in shops.
Round and round and round, “Here come Santa Clause, here come Santa Clause.” You can’t move around your normal life without being pecked by it. I just want to be with the people I love and comfortable in my own home, able to contemplate the pagan and Christian messages of Christmas. Which on the day I could. Finally there was nothing more to collect from the shops.
Which is why I heartily recommend Eliza and the Wild Swans. A true antidote to the faded glitz of Christmas. The Bike Shed is one of my favourite theatre spaces in the South West and it boasts a really lovely bar which has a clutter of furniture including old cinema seats and a fun cocktail list. Wardrobe Ensemble have a cast of five and make up all their props from the laundrette where their fable begins.
Like all of the shows I’ve seen at the Bike Shed it combined physical theatre with comedy. The company very successfully managed to fit an epic story, traversing oceans and borders, into the small space.
The company begins its narrative in the launderette on Christmas Eve where we meet Eliza whose real life is reflected in the fable. At times it seems a weak link but perhaps the original Eliza was comforted by the fact that her life couldn’t be more dangerous and complicated than the fable-Eliza's. They swoop from this launderette scene into the fairy tale world taking fragmented bits of the launderette to assemble the new world, coat hangers, laundry bags, broom handles, rubber gloves, net curtains etc.
There is a very effective scene where the eleven brothers, played by three members of the cast, turn into swans, their wings sprout into coat hangers and laundry. Also, a frightening moment for some in the audience was when the step mother burst into a demonic Kafka-esque creature, mop arms and red eyes and hideous crawling voice. Another demon with a laundry bag over his/her head caused one girl to sob. That’s what I loved about fairy tales and fables when I was little, the horror and the fear intermingled with the beautiful and sublime.
There are nice, happy moments too, like the tsar dancing and lots of lovely comedy moments, oh yes, and then they try to burn Eliza.
There's no attempt to hide the seams of the special effects, there can’t be in such a small space and a lot of its charm is in its handmade quality. If you’re looking for a glitzy-slick evening this isn’t for you. If you’re the sort of person who values creativity and ingenuity then this is definitely for you.
As an eight year old I would have been equally delighted by it. The actors keep a fast tempo and you come out feeling excited and flushed. A very good way to spend ninety minutes of your life.
This Christmas is the first I’ve spent in my own home, my boyfriend cooked me and his mum a beautiful Christmas lunch and we all nodded off into the lovely books we got for Christmas. There was no false jollity. We had planned to play games like Scrabble and Charades but we were all perfectly content.
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean we should be content with what always happens. What makes Christmas exhausting and inevitably bland is all the stuff that is imposed on us. The need to consume as much as we can as if we’re mice going into hibernation for half the year or the incessant harping of Christmas music at you from the radio and in shops.
Round and round and round, “Here come Santa Clause, here come Santa Clause.” You can’t move around your normal life without being pecked by it. I just want to be with the people I love and comfortable in my own home, able to contemplate the pagan and Christian messages of Christmas. Which on the day I could. Finally there was nothing more to collect from the shops.
Which is why I heartily recommend Eliza and the Wild Swans. A true antidote to the faded glitz of Christmas. The Bike Shed is one of my favourite theatre spaces in the South West and it boasts a really lovely bar which has a clutter of furniture including old cinema seats and a fun cocktail list. Wardrobe Ensemble have a cast of five and make up all their props from the laundrette where their fable begins.
Like all of the shows I’ve seen at the Bike Shed it combined physical theatre with comedy. The company very successfully managed to fit an epic story, traversing oceans and borders, into the small space.
The company begins its narrative in the launderette on Christmas Eve where we meet Eliza whose real life is reflected in the fable. At times it seems a weak link but perhaps the original Eliza was comforted by the fact that her life couldn’t be more dangerous and complicated than the fable-Eliza's. They swoop from this launderette scene into the fairy tale world taking fragmented bits of the launderette to assemble the new world, coat hangers, laundry bags, broom handles, rubber gloves, net curtains etc.
There is a very effective scene where the eleven brothers, played by three members of the cast, turn into swans, their wings sprout into coat hangers and laundry. Also, a frightening moment for some in the audience was when the step mother burst into a demonic Kafka-esque creature, mop arms and red eyes and hideous crawling voice. Another demon with a laundry bag over his/her head caused one girl to sob. That’s what I loved about fairy tales and fables when I was little, the horror and the fear intermingled with the beautiful and sublime.
There are nice, happy moments too, like the tsar dancing and lots of lovely comedy moments, oh yes, and then they try to burn Eliza.
There's no attempt to hide the seams of the special effects, there can’t be in such a small space and a lot of its charm is in its handmade quality. If you’re looking for a glitzy-slick evening this isn’t for you. If you’re the sort of person who values creativity and ingenuity then this is definitely for you.
As an eight year old I would have been equally delighted by it. The actors keep a fast tempo and you come out feeling excited and flushed. A very good way to spend ninety minutes of your life.
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