Lyn's Picks: 2 Nov

What to stream this week: Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales (Until Sun 21 Feb)

Storytelling is theatre in its simplest form. The Unicorn theatre has already given us a very enjoyable reading of Roald Dahl’s deliciously nasty The Twits online and now it turns its attention to Philip Pullman’s retelling of wonder tales. There’s the familiar Cinderella (read by Cecilia Noble) and Hansel and Gretel (read by Nadia Albina) and the less familiar including Colin Morgan reading The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs and Andy Umerah reading The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers.

If I had to pick favourites, I’d go for Susan Wokoma reading The Brave Little Tailor and Le Gateau Chocolat having fun with Rumpelstiltskin. These bite sized Grimms remind of the power of straightforward storytelling, and the underscoring by composer and sound designer Jon McLeod adds an edge to the stories that can both scare and yet, strangely, can comfort too.

Something worth putting in the diary: Rent (Fri 27 Nov - Sun 20 Dec)

Hope Mill has been an invaluable addition to Manchester’s theatre scene and has made a number of musical theatre transfers to London. Jonathan Larson’s Le Boheme inspired rock musical, directed by Luke Sheppard, was supposed to be running until December 6 but the new lockdown restrictions have scuppered that.

But you don’t have to miss out because the show has been recorded and will be available to watch online from November 27 until December 20th. So, if you are full of gloom because you can no see the London musical theatre shows you had booked to see live, Larson’s melodic tear-jerker should hit the spot and prove that Hope Mill is leading the way with small-scale musical theatre revivals.