Fantastic stories brilliantly told - Review Süddeutsche Zeitung Germany

This utopian satirical novel by Jonathan Swift is one of the most read books of world literature.

To adapt this fairytale story to the stage is not new. As early as 1726 Gulliver’s Travels was adapted for the stage first. It was at the times of famous Shakespeare actor David Garrick, who  accepted the book for Theatre Royal Drury Lane where is premiered first in 1756. 

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The story was ascribed to a fictional author, namely Lemuel Gulliver, who has experienced amazing adventures as a  ship’s doctor and later as a captain.  He not only travelled into the land of Lilliputs and to the island of giants Brobdingnang, but also the flying island Laputa, who’s inhabitants are so intensly involved in mathematics, music and astronomy that they are almost unable to develop personal relationships. 

His fourth journey brings Gulliver to a country which is ruled by coldly intelligent horses  and inhabited by brutal human beasts, the Yahoos. 

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The piece is performed in an almost musical style, with live music and  songs.

Paul Stebbings brilliantly transforms  his actors from dwarfs to giants. First Gulliver on stilts seems excessively large against all the others crawling on their knees.  Because, like Prometheous,  the giant Gulliver is captured by the petty self-important little people of Lilliput.  The satire on the  rulers of  the kingdom of Lilliput was  hilarious and at the same time sharp and well –observed.

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On the other hand the giants  of the kingdom of Brobdignag on their stills appear alarmingly dangerous.

But the highlight of the performance is the last scene where the horses (either two in a horses costume or one actor with a horse head) place Gulliver under more and more under pressure, joined by the Yahoos.  This is where Swifts satire  on human folly most impressively comes into its own.

The dramatic story was not only serious but highly entertaining and received long applause not only at the final curtain but after almost every scene of this delightful production 

Süddeutsche Zeitung – 27. February 1997, Germany’s leading newspaper