Take a trip to the dark side of fairy tales in Luton show

Joseph Coelho presents Fairy Tales Gone Bad at The Hat Factory tomorrow (Thursday) - but audiences expecting charming stories may be in for a surprise.

Joseph, who won the 2015 Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award, unwinds familiar tales to create fresh contemporary classics in two performances

In Fairy Tales Gone Bad: Grannylocks/The Monstrous Duckling, a show for young children aged three and above performed at 11.30am, a father returns home with a magical cloak that hides a story. It turns out that the Ugly Duckling was, and that Goldilocks was never a tale about a little girl but about a mean, thieving old granny.

Alternatively, join a mysterious vaudeville storyteller with a magical top-hat and coat in Fairy Tales Gone Bad: Zombie-rella/Blood-red Hood, a show for families aged six and above performed at 1.30pm. Discover the true tale of Cinderella, where she dies and becomes a zombie and falls in love with a vampire prince. And, of course, there’s the true tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf-hunter who never leaves her home without her shield, axe and blood-red stained cloak.

Joseph said: “I was interested in re-examining the morals of these stories.

“For example, in the original Ugly Duckling story the duckling becomes a beautiful swan. The message seems to be, ‘You’re okay, you are beautiful’, and I thought, ‘No, the duckling should be OK with how he looks’.”

Visit www.lutonculture.com for tickets.