As part of our Great Big Christmas Show Giveaway, Daily Info are giving away tickets to see Creation Theatre's The Tale of Beauty and the Tail of the Beast at the North Wall Arts Centre. We sat down with the creatives behind this show and see what they have in store for audiences this winter.
Daily Info: What does Creation Theatre have in store this Christmas?
Creation Theatre: What don’t we have in store?! Songs, silliness, love, jokes, dancing, mulled wine and a really massive tail (to name but a few!) If you’ve seen our shows before you’ll know to expect a great night out, a really creative, fun, exciting performance, and a little bit of extra magic that’s really hard to describe.
DI: What's The Tale of Beauty and the Tail of the Beast all about?
CT: Well the traditional french fairytale is pretty well-known. Girl meets large hairy man-beast, girl gets trapped in house of aforementioned man-beast, everyone lives happily ever after. Our show this Christmas will tell that well-loved story, but the fun really comes in with the clever framing device that writer Paul Boyd has placed around it: the actors play a troupe of travelling players who bring their own baggage, egos and chaos to the story too. One of the first things that happens is the script is dropped on the floor - so nobody is sure which order the scenes are supposed to go in…
DI: Creation Theatre is a regular fixture at the North Wall. How does it feel to be back in this venue? And what does it offer you to go somewhere familiar to you?
CT: We love performing at The North Wall, it’s such a fantastic venue that we’re really lucky to have in Oxford. I enjoy telling people about its past as a swimming pool - we’ve even had audience members who remember having swimming lessons where they’re now sitting to watch the show. Every time we start planning a Christmas show there we look at the space afresh, if you’ve joined us over the past 10 years you’ll have experienced many different seating and staging layouts, and we always start with what will be the most exciting way to tell the story. Then we hand over to our incredibly talented designer Ryan Dawson Laight who has done everything from fill the whole place with coppiced wood to build 4 foot high light up letters across the stage. The most brilliant thing about The North Wall is that it’s so intimate and cosy - whatever antics we get up to you won’t miss them, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house.
DI: When approaching a Christmas show what are the key things a production has to get right?
CT: Ooh, this is a hard one. There are so many different kinds of Christmas theatre out there, but for us it’s about making something that can transport you away for a couple of hours, whether you're 7 or 77. Christmas can be such a hectic time, so we want our audiences to come into a Creation Christmas show expecting 2 ½ hours of sheer delight, community, escapism and joy.
DI: Sum up The Tale of Beauty and the Tail of the Beast in three words.
CT: Beautiful bonkers fun
Creation Theatre's The Tale of Beauty and the Tail of the Beast runs at the North Wall Arts Centre from 4th December 2022 to 7th January 2023 and tickets can be found on their website.
Check out Daily Info's Great Big Chistmas Show Giveaway throughout November for the chance to win tickets to some of the best festive productions.
