"The Little Match Girl" - a theatre production of a different kind

The Tiger Lillies

"The Little Match Girl" is one of Hans Christian Andersen's most popular fairy tales. The little girl selling matches on New Year's Eve lights one after the other in order to capture the illusion of warmth. Like many of Andersen's tales it has a dark and bitter side. The little girl freezes to death in the snow. British songwriter and composer Martyn Jacques captures the pathos and beauty of the story in 12 songs he wrote for a special theater production of the fairytale. With his trio The Tiger Lillies he performed "The Little Match Girl" earlier this in Munich before contiuing on to Paris and Vienna.

Three musicians, dressed in Dickensonian top hats and red velvet suits, appear on an old- fashioned stage. To the right of them a tall thin man in a shabby black suit tries to warm himself and looks forward to emptying a bottle of whisky that he lovingly places on the kitchen table. So begins an unusual and unsentimental version of Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale. For composer Martyn Jacques, who also plays the accordion and sings the songs in a high falsetto voice, it is a story with dark solemn undertones. Martyn Jacques was born in Slough into a blue-collar family and spent his early years living above a brothel in Soho, which provided inspiration for many of his more lurid lyrics. He founded his musical trio, The Tiger Lillies, about 15 years ago but the group only made its breakthrough with Shockheaded Peter for which Jacques won the Laurence Olivier Award in 2002.

Laetitia Angot plays the Little Match Girl

More typically Martyn Jacques writes songs are about sex, drugs, prostitution or bestiality. He performs with drummer Adrian Huge, who worked in banks, pie shops and as a car mechanic, before discovering his true vocation. Blues and jazz musician Adrian Stout, on the double bass, often enhances Tiger Lilly performances using his dramatic talents. At the Edinburgh Festival he appeared on stage dressed as a prostitute. In one scene of the Little Match Girl Stout accompanies Jacques on the musical saw.

Two actors complete the Match Girl ensemble. Actor Bob Goody is the Man, the father and producer who loves his whisky more than his daughter, whom he sends barefoot into the cold to earn money selling matches. The classically trained actor, who studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art adds a comedic counterpoint to the performance.

French actress Laetitia Angot plays the Little Match Girl. Angot's ballet training stands her in good stead because the non-speaking role calls for a great deal of body language.

On the freezing cold holiday night the Little match girl tries to sell her matches, but no one is there to buy them. She lights one after the other, each creating the illusion of warmth, but one by one, the matches flutter out, leaving her in the cold. The Tollwood performance captures the dark side of the story. The Little Matchgirl sees a star fall and remembers the story her grandmother once told her.

The little match girl is afraid to go home, afraid of the beating she'll get for not selling her matches. She retreats further and further from the audience and dies. Behind her the Christmas lights promise the warmth and love and the song that Martyn Jacques sings promises peace on earth.