The Story Giant, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Richard Bremmer, Tom Kanji, Asha Kingsley, Elliott Kingsley, Melanie La Barrie.

No matter the story, if it is told with a sense of thriving passion then it has the ability to nurture life, to explode with an array of colours, light and images, it has the never ending possibilities to ensure that the imagination is always keen to explore and that the mind, the most important and beautiful tool than humanity possesses, is kept open to embrace change and hungry for more.

The story is the key to untold riches and assurance that the generations following us have something tangible to hold on to when everything else around them is falling apart and passing into darkness; it is the story that gives them home and for all attending the Everyman Theatre’s third production with the theatre’s company, the heart-warming The Story Giant, hope is always there, from every syllable and nuance, every gesture presented by the important cast, hope brings the story out into the open and it is one that makes you understand why Brian Patten’s lyrical verse is so venerated and acclaimed.

The Story Giant is a force of Brian Patten’s sense of direction, the ability to draw in child and adult alike with the deft touch of wonder and one that Director Matt Rutter takes very seriously but also one that has Mr. Rutter’s undeniably comedy timing strewn through it; a permanent stitch in search of the thread’s final masterpiece and one to which Mr. Rutter and the cast are endowed to deliver.

From a simple but incredibly considerable set to the subtle and mystical feel of the lighting shining down upon the tree of knowledge. The play’s cast took the audience down memory lane, of what it meant when the things we surrounded ourselves were words, chapters of a life not yet thought of and the scale of the possible before us, not with games, not with clutter and party pieces that mean nothing but actual words through the eyes of a child, the words on the page can change the world, somebody’s mind and Time.

A superbly presented play, each part performed with genuine affection to the story and each one, each player, becoming a giant in their own right. The Story Giant is the place to remember what it was like when you first found the tale that moved you.

Ian D. Hall