Hans Christian Andersen

Disney’s Academy-Award winning adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale of the same name, The Little Mermaid (1989), was the catalyst for the Disney Renaissance; a decade that catapulted worldwide critical and commercial success for the animation studio and boasted well-acclaimed classics such as Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin...

Walking into the Weston Gallery feels like you’ve become Red Riding Hood and strayed into the woodland. The lights are dimmed to preserve the antiquated books on display, yet the witches’ silhouettes on the walls evoke a sense of mystery. Much like the darkened room, the fairy tales we...

Very few fairy tales pose the challenges to staging that The Little Mermaid does, and I must confess I was rather confused as to how a story partially set underwater where the protagonist has a fish’s tail instead of legs would work as a ballet. However, I was wrong...