The Storyteller

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See also: Storyteller

The Storyteller is a live-action/puppet television series created and produced by Jim Henson in 1987.

The series retold various European fairy tales, created with a combination of actors and puppets. The framing device had an old storyteller (John Hurt) sitting by a fire telling each tale to his talking dog (a puppet, performed and voiced by Brian Henson). The series was scored by Rachel Portman.

Contents 1 Episode list 1.1 Series 1 1.2 Series 2 2 Episode guide 2.1 Series 1 2.1.1 The Soldier and Death 2.1.2 Fearnot 2.1.3 The Luck Child 2.1.4 A Story Short 2.1.5 Hans My Hedgehog 2.1.6 The Three Ravens 2.1.7 Sapsorrow 2.1.8 The Heartless Giant 2.1.9 The True Bride 3 Media 3.1 VHS 3.2 DVD 3.3 Books 4 Actors 5 Awards 6 Trivia 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Episode list

[edit] Series 1

Each half-hour episode was written by Anthony Minghella. Only nine were completed:

1. "The Soldier and Death"*
2. "Fearnot"
3. "The Luck Child"
4. "A Story Short"
5. "Hans My Hedgehog"
6. "The Three Ravens"*
7. "Sapsorrow"*
8. "The Heartless Giant"*
9. "The True Bride"*

* this episode first aired in the US as part of The Jim Henson Hour.

[edit] Series 2

Henson later attempted a follow-up, The Storyteller: Greek Myths, which had a different story-teller (Michael Gambon), but the same dog. Only four episodes of this series were made:

1. "Daedalus and Icarus"
2. "Orpheus and Eurydice"
3. "Perseus and the Gorgon"
4. "Theseus and the Minotaur"

[edit] Episode guide

[edit] Series 1

[edit] The Soldier and Death

From an early Russian folk tale. A soldier returns from 20 years of war with nothing but three biscuits in his sack. In his way home he encounters a beggar asking for food. Being a kind-hearted soldier he offers him a biscuit and in repay for his generosity, the beggar gives him an extraordinary ruby whistle.

Continuing his way, he finds a second beggar. The beggar plays a drum and the soldier whistles to the rhythm. A terrible dancer, the soldier nonetheless makes a good effort. After enjoying themselves, the soldier gives him his second biscuit, and the beggar gives in return the ability to dance.

Continuing his way, the soldier finds one last beggar who plays marvellous tricks with cards. Watching with great enjoyment, the soldier bursts into applause. The old beggar asks if his tricks are worth a farthing. "More," says the soldier, "but I have nothing but this biscuit." He removes it from his pocket and breaks it in two to share, but as he does he decides it is not fair to give this beggar less than the others, so he hands over the whole biscuit.

The beggar realizes the soldier's heart is kind and gives him his deck of card explaining him that with this deck, he will never ever lose a single hand of poker. Then the beggar gives him an old and ugly sack, explaining that whatever he wanted to be inside the sack, he just needs to say the name out loud and then the order "Get in the sack!".

Soon the soldier arrives at a lake in which beautiful geese swim and rests there. Curious about his new gift, he calls, "Geese! Get in the sack!" and so the geese do. The soldier continues until he arrives in a town. He enters a tavern where the owner compliments him on his whistle and asks what he has in the sack. The soldier replies, "Four geese I trapped yesterday. If you will roast one for me, and give me a room, you may have the other three for your trouble." "I like a nice roast goose," says the tavern owner, taking the sack to the kitchen. "Be sure to bring back the sack!" calls the soldier, who relaxes whistling his ruby whistle.

Soon he must outwit devils, save a kingdom, and try to outwit death.

[edit] Fearnot

From an early German folk tale. The Storyteller recounts the adventures of a boy who goes out into the world to learn what fear is.

[edit] The Luck Child

An evil king sets out to kill a 'luck child', the seventh son of a seventh son, whom it is prophesised will one day be king. The child's luck is a gift, and cannot be undone. The same is true of prophesies...

[edit] A Story Short

An adaptation of the stone soup fable, the Storyteller tells of a harsh time when he was forced to walk the land as a beggar. Finding himself in sight of the castle kitchen, he picks up a stone and fools the castle cook into helping him make soup from a stone, by adding it into a cauldron of water and slowly adding other ingredients to improve the flavour. His efforts win him an audince with the King who promises to give the Storyteller a gold crown for each story he tells, one for each day of the year...but on the final day, the Storyteller awakens and can think of no story...

[edit] Hans My Hedgehog

From an early German folk tale. A farmer's wife drives her husband mad with her desperate measures to have a baby. She wants a baby so badly that she doesn't care what she gets, even a hedgehog. That, of course, is what she gets: a baby covered in quills, as soft as feathers. His mother calls him 'Hans My Hedgehog' and she is the only one to love him; his father grows to hate him for the shame, and so eventually Hans leaves for a place where he can't hurt anyone and where no-one can hurt him. Deep inside the forest, for many years Hans dwells with his animals for companions. One day a king gets lost in Hans' forest and when Hans helps him to escape, then king promises that he will give to Hans the first thing to greet him at his castle - which the King secretly knows to be his dog. It so happens that it is the King's daughter to greet him and he is reminded of his promise to the creature. When Hans shows up to claim and marry his prize the entire castle is in uproar, but the princess accepts her fate and marries Hans. Soon she discovers his secret, when he leaves her asleep at night and sheds his quills to become a handsome man, she rests on his shedded quills which he has left behind. However when Hans discovers she has learned the truth, he returns to his Hedgehog form and leaves her. She wears out many shoes searching for her husband, and one day after many seasons of searching, comes upon a little hut in a forest. When a raven flies in to sup at the table, it turns into her beloved hedgehog. She has found him and holds on to him with true love until he relents, and all of his animal characteristics disappear, allowing him to assume his human figure for good.

[edit] The Three Ravens

Based on the early German folk tale, The Six Swans. After the Queen dies, an evil witch ensnares the King, and turn his three sons into ravens to rid herself of her rivals. The princess escapes and must stay silent for three years, three months, three weeks and three days in order to break the spell. But after she meets a handsome prince, this is suddenly not so easy...

[edit] Sapsorrow

This is a variant on the Donkeyskin tale, with elements of Cinderella. The girl whose finger fits the ring will become Queen; the law decrees it. The girl whose foot fits the slipper will marry a handsome prince. What a lucky girl, you might think? Oh no...for when the princess slips on her mother's ring for safekeeping, the King finds out and must marry her: the law decrees it. The princess goes into hiding, becoming a creature of fur and feathers helped by her forest creature friends, until she meets the handsome prince...

[edit] The Heartless Giant

From an early German folk tale. A heartless giant, who once terrorised the land before being captured and imprisoned, is befriended by the young prince Leo who, one night, sets him free. His older brothers go after the giant to capture him, but do not return, so Leo sets off to find the giant himself. Once found, Leo decides to find the giant's heart, but this is no easy task - it sits in an egg in a duck in a well in a church in a lake in a mountain far away. No easy task indeed.

This is a variation upon the Norwegian tale The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body.

[edit] The True Bride

Based on an early German folk tale. A Troll had a daughter, but she left straight off. So the Troll took another to replace her to wait on him hand and foot. Her name is Anja and she has no father and she has no mother, so the Troll is her other. Setting her impossible tasks, then beating her with his "contradiction stick" when she invariably fails, she wishes one day. Her wish is heard by the Thought Lion, a wondrous beast all in white, who completes her impossible tasks for her. When she finds her true love, he disappears one day, so Anja sets out to find him...in the hands of the Troll's evil daughter, the Trollop...

The story also bears similarities to East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a Norwegian folk tale from the Norske Folkeeventyr.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Media

The stories have been made available through a variety of media.

[edit] VHS

In the UK, all 9 episodes of series 1 were made available in 1989 on a set of 4 VHS tapes released by Channel 5.

In 1999 four of the stories were re-released by Columbia Tri-Star across two VHS tapes in both the UK and the US. These were "A Story Short", "The Luck Child", "The Soldier and Death" and "Sapsorrow".

[edit] DVD

Both series 1 and 2 are available in region 1 & 2 DVD format. They offer no extra features other than the original episodes in their original stereo format.

A more recent, Jim Henson's the Storyteller - The Definitive Collection, was released on DVD in the US in May 2006.

[edit] Books

Two versions of the book have been published; the text is the same but the pictures differ. The text, written as a series of short stories by Anthony Minghella, is adapted slightly to fit better the medium of "short story". One (ISBN 0-517-10761-9, Boxtree) features a photograph of the Storyteller on the cover; the illustrations within (by Stephen Morley) are the silhouettes as seen in the program, and photographic stills of the episodes alongside the text. The other version (ISBN 0-679-45311-3, Random House) has full colour hand illustrations by Darcy May, depicting the stories alongside the text.

[edit] Actors

The first series featured many actors who went on to become famous. These include Jane Horrocks as Anya (The True Bride), Sean Bean as the True Bride's love, Mark Williams as Fearnot 's brother, Alison Doody as Sapsorrow and Gabrielle Anwar as Fearnot 's love.

[edit] Awards

Series 1 was nominated for and won several awards.^[1]

Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1987	Won	Emmy Award	Outstanding Children's Program Jim Henson (executive producer) Mark Shivas (producer) For episode Hans My Hedgehog.
1988	Nominated	Emmy Award	Outstanding Children's Program Jim Henson (executive producer) Duncan Kenworthy (producer) For episode A Story Short.
1988	Nominated	Emmy Award	Outstanding Children's Program Jim Henson (executive producer) Duncan Kenworthy (producer) For episode The Luckchild.
1989	Won	BAFTA TV Award	Best Children's Programme (Entertainment/Drama) Duncan Kenworthy
1989	Won	BAFTA TV Award	Best Costume Design Ann Hollowood
1989	Nominated	BAFTA TV Award	Best Make Up Sally Sutton

[edit] Trivia

• Series 1 was filmed at Elstree Studios in England.
• Sapsorrow featured the comedy duo French and Saunders as the bad sisters.
• The number 3 appears as significant in every episode, in keeping with tradition in old Indo-European based folktales.

[edit] References

1. ^ IMDB Awards. The Storyteller. IMDB. Retrieved on March 19, 2007.

[edit] External links

• The Storyteller at the Internet Movie Database