Coal Head, Toadstool Mouth and Other Stories

Written in a manner that borrows heavily from the Brothers Grimm, Coal Head, Toadstool Mouth and Other Stories is a collection of short plays from the reasonably well-respected Sussex University Drama Society. It is a collection of morality tales, disturbing fantasies and nonsense stories that wears its dark influences proudly on its sleeve.

Unfortunately though, Coal Head, Toadstool Mouth and Other Stories lacks any of the stylistic atmosphere necessary to realise their Grimm pretentions. This is in part due to shortcomings in the script, but more pressingly is down to the manner in which it is staged: one simply can not get around the fact that the undressed, modernist lecture theatre of the Symposium Hall completely strips any atmosphere from the production. Instead, it feels much too sterile, overly-lit and too artificial to ever be particularly affecting. One cannot help but feel that, on these grounds alone, the young cast are facing an uphill battle in suspending our disbelief.

Staging aside though, there are problems with the writing. Not least the fact that the eponymous sketch involving Coal Head and Toadstool Mouth—two young girls lost in a forrest and hunted by a malicious aristocrat—takes up around half the running time and is utterly tedious. There are indeed some interesting sketches, and having the actors dressed up as marionettes is a well-executed conceit, but the quality of the collection is so wildly variable that it is a hugely unsatisfying hour.