Arabian Nights
Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
The RSC’s Christmas show is a welcome revival by Dominic Cooke of his adaptation of Arabian Nights, first staged with great success at the Young Vic in 1998. This is also the first ‘family show’ in the Courtyard, and it was good there were so many children there to enjoy it on the opening night.
The stories told by the beautiful Shahrazad to the King in hope of postponing her post-wedding-night execution are obscure in origin. But even the unexpurgated versions by Sir Richard (‘dirty dick’) Burton (16 volumes, 1885–88) run to no more than about 260 tales and not the thousand-and-one that legend would have us believe. Of these, Dominic Cooke has chosen six, inevitably including ‘Ali Baba’ and ‘Es-Sindibad the Sailor’ (but alas no ‘Aladdin’) and spicing up his selection with the naughty story of how Abu Hassan broke wind before his bride.
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