Giles Woodforde finds that survival is more than sugar and spice

It’s a pick and mix dream. There are an almost countless number of stories to choose from in the One Thousand and One Nights collection.

Alongside Sinbad, Aladdin, and Ali Baba sit the less well known Sympathy the Learned, The Blind Beggar and Princess Badoura. Theatre directors and designers can set the tales in modernistic simplicity or bejewelled period splendour.

In an epic show at the Pegasus this week, different groups of Arabian Nights stories are presented each evening, with some produced in traditional style and others given a contemporary twist.

Each selection is introduced by Sherry, a girl who remembers her childhood and the Arabian Nights stories her grandfather told her.

The chosen stories are then presented to the Sultan, a crusty individual who usually selects a new girl each night, only to have her murdered the next morning — as the production makes clear, the Arabian Nights stories are by no means all sugar and spice.

Dance is used in several of the stories, and the choice of music is highly effective throughout — for instance there’s a delicious choreographed song entitled Whoever Heard of a Talking Bird, Whoever Heard of a Singing Tree in the story The Madman and Perfect Love (produced by Kala Arpan). Colourful Indian dance shines in this story too. T

he Drama 11-15’s group give a most effective, choreographed, contemporary twist to Ali Baba as his 40 thieves creep about in semi-darkness in search of booty: “My daughter needs money for bling,” wails one thief. Contemporary, too, is the Pegasus Drama and Dance group’s chilling treatment of Journey into Exile.

I’ve listed no individual names as it would be invidious to do so: well over 200 children and young adults are involved as performers and backstage. With different teams working on each story, the results are inevitably a little variable — but where’s the fun and the learning if you play for safety all the time?

On opening night, the performance was perhaps a bit protracted in places, but make no mistake: Stories for Survival is a terrific achievement by all concerned, and vibrates with infectious energy and commitment.