More ghosts, ghoulies and comically ill-informed tour guides than you can shake an X File at

Newbury Youth Theatre: Here Be Dragons at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore on Thursday, July 27, review by ANDY KEMPE

Cartographers of old were wont to illustrate unexplored lands and seas with drawings of fantastical creatures. One way of filling in the gaps in our knowledge is to make up stories. Such is the root of all myths which are simply a way of explaining things that we don’t fully understand. Legends are slightly different in that they tend have a basis in actual occurrences which couldn’t be explained away but then, through a process akin to Chinese whispers, became more elaborate and fabulous.

One such story is that of the grampus, a bizarre, wheezing, dolphin-like creature that was said to live in a tree in Highclere churchyard and would chase any local parishioner foolish enough to get too close to it. Setting off on a quest to discover some of the country’s lesser-known beasties, bogles and bogeymen, the grampus is the first creature the intrepid cast of Newbury Youth Theatre encounter. Employing a range of theatrical techniques including physical theatre, song and shadow puppets, their adventure takes them northward where they encounter the likes of Lincolnshire’s Yallory Brown, who seems at first to be manically good humoured but is actually pretty sinister. Their journey ends in Edinburgh which, apparently, has more ghosts, ghoulies and comically ill-informed tour guides than you can shake an X File at.

This is an enthusiastic and energetic ensemble which has patently enjoyed researching these stories and finding creative ways of both retelling them and, in some instances, offering possible explanations of them. Monsters may be exaggerated versions of the real but they may also be metaphors.

In discussing the meaning and importance of fairy tales, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim wrote, ‘Those who outlawed traditional folk fairy tales decided that if there were monsters in a story told to children, these must all be friendly – but they missed the monster a child knows best and is most concerned with: the monster he feels or fears himself to be, and which also sometimes persecutes him.’ Bettelheim argues that by giving body to monsters in stories, children who are exposed to them become better able to deal with their own fears and anxieties. Perhaps unwittingly, the young actors of Newbury Youth Theatre have endorsed this theory by interspersing their dramatic retellings of local legends with brief but honest reflections on their own propensity to become monsters at times. Punctuating the humourous take on what are sometimes quite scary tales with these earnest interludes gave the production a depth and relevance.

The company are now off to the Edinburgh Festival. I wish them every success there but would, with respect, advise that they notch up the volume and clarity of their delivery. The theatre at Arlington Arts is lovely but pretty big and even though I was only a few rows from the front I missed a fair amount of the dialogue.

Edinburgh performances:

https://www.edfringe.com/ Monday, August 7, to Saturday, August 12, at Paradise at St Augustines, Edinburgh