For those old enough to remember, Jim Henson once produced a short series of fairy tales that were terrifying, enchanting, and romantic. My wife always adored this series, and even when we were dating could recite entire sections of her favourite episodes. For those who may not have seen it, The StoryTeller was a children’s series from 1987 that used Jim Henson’s puppetry workshop to retell nine traditional European folk tales. Everyone who has seen the series has their own favourite, be it the adventurousness of The Luck Child, the sweet sincerity of The True Bride, or the tragic ending to The Soldier and Death.
The series was created to capture the magic of traditional storytelling, with each tale narrated by the incomparable John Hurt, giving his best rolling Cornish accent to keep the rhyme and rhythm of each story going. He speaks directly to the audience, usually from his chair by the fire, cutting between short scenes from each tale and interjections from his sardonic dog (a puppet voiced by Jim Henson’s son Brian). The stories contain some guest appearances from some surprising heavy hitters, including Sean Bean, Alun Armstrong and French & Saunders, but the real stars of the show are the puppets. Jim Henson’s creations are fantastic, exaggerated pantomime characters who leap off the screen – my wife’s favourite will always be the Griffin from the Luck Child, but my girls loved the StoryTeller’s dog.
And the stories themselves? I think they are so intriguing because they have a timeless quality, and (paradoxically) because they are so different to modern storytelling. The characters are usually simple, and there’s rarely anything resembling character development (The Soldier and Death is a heart-breaking exception). Only one of two of these stories get anything more than basic character dialogue, yet they all have effective goals, motivations, stakes and urgency. The stories are not specifically aimed at being morality tales, at least not overtly. They are more glimpses into a world of strange magic and fey creatures, filled with adventure and terror. Yet, if our heroes and heroines stay true to themselves, these characters might just come out on top.
I wanted to watch one episode with my girls. It’s been two hours and they are still watching, jumping out of their seats at every climatic moment. I’m going to finish this here so I can re-join them, so I’ll leave you with a quote from the novelist and philosopher G K Chesterton:
“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of the bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of the bogey.”
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