Jeremy Miles
The wonderfully creative Italian theatre company Teatro Kismet make a welcome return to Poole with this superb adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s timeless fairytale.
Originally published as The Little Mermaid, it tells a story of loss and what can happen if we allow our hearts to rule our heads.
Written and directed by Teresa Ludovico, it finds a young mermaid enchanted by a handsome Prince who she saves from drowning in a shipwreck.
The Prince too is enraptured by her beauty and above all her magical song. However to leave the sea and marry a human, the Mermaid has to trade her voice for a pair of legs.
It is a deadly mistake.
Beautifully staged and performed by a cast of five actor/dancers, the story, told with great humour and marvelously atmospheric lighting and sound, shows how our world is constantly changing. How water turns into air, air turns into clouds and clouds turn into rain and therefore water again.
Sometimes, as in this tale, mermaids are turned into sea-spray and become clouds themselves.