The Little Match Girl, Brighton Corn Exchange - Review

The Little Match Girl is a beguiling, modern adaptation which retains the spirit of of the Hans Christian Anderson classic with a superbly-realised, dance-theatre production.

It began its Corn Exchange run earlier this week and there are performances right up to Christmas Eve.

We went along on Thursday evening (December 21) amid the crowds and excitement of Brighton’s Burning of the Clocks parade, and it was fitting to pass through one of the city’s much-loved annual events to a enjoy another pearl of a Brighton Christmas show.

The parade’s pounding drums mercifully gave way to the sound of soft acoustic guitar, and harmonica as the audience filed into the recently revamped and completely re-energised Corn Exchange.

A solo musician played alongside a sparsely decorated stage, lit by a large glowing moon.

The atmospheric gentle chimes of a music box introduced the eponymous Little Match Girl, Fiammetta, who skipped, span and pirouetted beautifully through the streets of an unnamed Italian town, setting the standard of dance, originally devised by award-winning choreographer Arthur Pita.

What followed, over a massively enjoyable hour-and-a-ten minutes, was a stylish retelling of the fable, sung and spoken in Italian but clearly told with wonderfully expressive dance and movement.

Fiammetta experiences ups and downs a plenty, including a flowing and mildly acrobatic turn with a lamplighter, a more energetic dance-off with rival match-sellers, and most notably, with dismissive and cruel Donnarumma family.

The garishly dressed trio, posture, preen and prance across the stage, with gestures and cackles that play to row Z and beyond the huge beams of the Corn Exchange ceiling.

Their squawking, shrieking and yapping is a highlight, at times hilarious, but other times inhuman and despicable.

The soundtrack (which mixed live and recorded) is engaging throughout, with surprising use of lesser-heard-on-stage instruments such as the melodica and theremin.

One especially lush sequence evokes the stellar sounds of Brian Eno’s Apollo with dream-like slide guitar.

And don’t worry if the original ending of the tale might seem a bit of a downer, the conclusion of this production features a lighter more contemporary touch, not to mention a miniature remote-controlled moon buggy and giant-stepping astronaut…