Grimm has arrived in Melbourne, and fairy tales have never looked — or sounded — quite like this.
Part of its national tour, Grimm has landed at Melbourne’s Fairfax Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne, bringing with it the wickedly irreverent, edgy and decidedly contemporary style of Shake & Stir Theatre Co, the team behind acclaimed productions including Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby and A Christmas Carol.
Originally premiering in 2024 as part of the Brisbane Festival, Grimm is adapted by Nelle Lee, directed by Daniel Evans, with costumes designed by Australian fashion icon Paul McCann.
Forget the sanitised fairy tales of childhood. This is the Brothers Grimm as you’ve never seen them before. Grimm takes the familiar characters and twisted tales we think we know and throws them into a world that is anything but happily ever after. Little Red Riding Hood is street-wise, the Prince is decidedly less than charming, Rumplestiltskin is faced with impossible demands, and the Woodman is pushed to his limits. The characters are stripped back, exaggerated and reimagined — sometimes hilariously, sometimes uncomfortably.
The setting alone gives you a pretty good idea of what’s in store. The action unfolds inside a destitute drinking den deep in the forest, rather wonderfully named The Witches Tit. It’s grimy, chaotic and wonderfully theatrical, with clever stage design creating a world that feels part fairy tale, part vaudeville dive bar.
And then there are the performances.
Aljin Abella, Helen Cassidy, Melissa Kahraman and Henry Rollo are absolutely superb, each seamlessly transitioning between multiple characters with impressive comic timing, physicality and vocal versatility. There’s a strong chemistry between the four performers as they throw themselves wholeheartedly into the chaos, moving effortlessly between song, dance, vaudeville, slapstick and moments of genuine theatrical intensity.
There is also plenty of playful interaction with the audience, adding to the feeling that anything could happen next.
What begins as a wildly entertaining and often exaggerated take on these familiar stories gradually takes a much darker turn. The comedy becomes increasingly unsettling, with the production pushing the original Grimm darkness to an almost gleefully exaggerated extreme.
Yet, much like the original tales, there is ultimately light at the end of the forest. Good triumphs over evil, but the production leaves us with something more contemporary than a simple fairy-tale moral: messages of self-acceptance, tolerance and learning to embrace — rather than fear or judge — those who are different from us.
It’s funny, filthy, energetic, clever and, at times, surprisingly moving.
And the Fairfax Theatre itself is an ideal home for the production. Its intimate configuration means there are no bad seats, giving the audience a clear view of the wonderfully inventive action unfolding on stage.
This is theatre that doesn’t simply entertain — it takes you somewhere. For a couple of hours, you’re transported into a strange, dark and deliciously dysfunctional fairy-tale world, emerging on the other side with plenty to laugh about and perhaps a little to think about too.
Grimm is ultimately a reminder of what live entertainment can do when it refuses to play it safe: make you laugh, surprise you, unsettle you and, just occasionally, tug at your heart.
