Shake & Stir Theatre Co turns familiar fairy tales into an adult theatrical adventure where comedy, horror, desire and sharp social observation collide.
by Paul Cashmere
Fairy tales have rarely felt this dangerous. Shake & Stir Theatre Co’s GRIMM: Tales From The Brothers Grimm, now playing at Fairfax Studio at Arts Centre Melbourne, takes stories that generations have encountered since childhood and strips away the comforting gloss. What remains is funny, unsettling, bawdy and surprisingly contemporary, delivered by four performers who move rapidly between a gallery of familiar characters. GRIMM is theatre for adults, although younger adults may particularly appreciate its innuendo while older audiences will recognise characters they thought they knew.
At approximately 80 minutes, GRIMM packs an extraordinary amount into a compact production. Rather than attempt to stage the vast body of folklore associated with Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, writers Nelle Lee and Daniel Evans have constructed an interconnected theatrical world from several of the best-known tales.
Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, the Big Bad Wolf, the Witch and other figures occupy the same strange universe. Their stories overlap, characters change direction and familiar expectations are repeatedly disrupted.
The result is more than a collection of updated fairy tales. GRIMM examines the assumptions buried inside those stories, particularly ideas surrounding power, desire, vulnerability and survival. The darker material is not softened, but the production understands that comedy can make uncomfortable subjects more immediate rather than diminishing them.
The four-person cast of Aljin Abella, Helen Cassidy, Nelle Lee and Henry Rollo provides the engine. Each performer handles multiple characters, with transformations sometimes requiring little more than a change of costume, physicality or attitude.
Lee’s Red Riding Hood is particularly memorable, replacing the passive innocence traditionally associated with the character with a woman who possesses considerably more agency. Rollo’s Big Bad Wolf has an entirely different menace, while Abella’s Beast is an unexpectedly vulnerable presence. Cassidy’s Cinderella, or Ashputtel, gives another familiar character a strong sense of determination beneath her apparent meekness.
That multiplication of roles is one of GRIMM’s great theatrical pleasures. The audience is constantly watching the performers become somebody else, often within moments. It creates an energetic rhythm that keeps the production moving while also reinforcing the idea that these characters are not fixed in the versions audiences may remember.
The visual design is equally important. Josh McIntosh’s set places the action inside a crooked, eccentric environment that feels part drinking establishment, part fairy-tale nightmare. A tilted piano and deliberately skewed surroundings give the stage an unstable quality, while the piles of apples immediately establish a connection with the mythology of the stories.
Paul McCann’s costumes allow the performers to move between characters efficiently without sacrificing visual identity. The production’s fast transformations become part of the performance rather than interruptions to it.
Daniel Evans’ direction maintains a firm grip on the pace. Trent Suidgeest’s lighting is particularly effective when the production plunges into darkness, while Guy Webster’s sound design adds another layer of unease. Sudden noises and screams can turn laughter into apprehension in an instant. Dan Venz’s choreography and NJ Price’s fight direction add further physical precision.
There is also a theatrical intelligence in the way GRIMM approaches its source material. The Brothers Grimm were collectors and researchers of European folklore, and the stories associated with their name have changed considerably through retelling. GRIMM acknowledges that history without becoming a lecture. Instead, it asks what happens when characters who have spent centuries being defined by archetypes are allowed to push back.
That is where the production becomes particularly effective for an adult audience. The jokes are often knowingly risqué, but the humour is not the entire point. Beneath the innuendo and slapstick is a recognition that the original stories were frequently violent, frightening and morally complicated.
For older audiences, there is pleasure in recognising the stories and then seeing them dismantled. For younger adults, the irreverence, sexual humour and contemporary attitude provide another entry point. The production works because it does not require the audience to have a particular relationship with the original tales.
GRIMM is a rare production that can be funny one moment and genuinely unsettling the next without losing its theatrical identity. Shake & Stir has created a modern Australian interpretation of old folklore that respects the darkness at its core while giving the material a distinctly contemporary voice.
Noise11 thoroughly recommends GRIMM. If you know these fairy tales, expect to see them differently. If you think you have outgrown them, this production may prove otherwise.
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- GRIMM by Parenthesy
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- GRIMM by Parenthesy
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- GRIMM by Parenthesy
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- GRIMM by Parenthesy
Tour Dates
unti 10 September 2026, Melbourne, Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
16 and 17 September 2026, Newcastle, Newcastle Civic Theatre
26 September 2026, Alice Springs, Araluen Arts Centre
1 and 2 October 2026, Darwin, AANT Centre
Ticket Details
Bookings for the Melbourne season are through Arts Centre Melbourne. The production is recommended for audiences aged 14 and over because of its dark themes and adult humour.
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