The Three Billy Goats Gruff offers delightful stories to be enjoyed by young and old. A lovely set greets us, adorned with clouds and a faraway castle on top of a hill. The sign points back at the Magical Land of Three. Slowly a Sunflower creeps onstage revealing an older man with a waxed moustache and well kept white beard who is our storyteller for the next hour. He proceeds to tell us about having been to the Magical Land of Three and the fact that he has some fabulous stories to tell: The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the titular Three Billy Goats Gruff.
What happens next is the truly enchanting part as he lifts three large wooden number threes up and at the start of each tale, unlocks each one to reveal compartments containing puppets of the stories he is telling. The storytellers’ wagon is moved centre stage and serves as the platform on which to continue his narration. This too contains various compartments and sections that reveal further parts of his storytelling which are interesting reworking of the originals. They are contemporised but ultimately the characters within the stories are fleshed out quite a bit- why did the first pig build his house of straw? Why did Goldilocks go into the Three Bears House?
Each story is voiced accurately and un-self consciously (all important in children’s shows) and contains enough jokes in the stories to engage the adults as well as the children. The show lasts an hour and is absorbing however it does feel slightly overlong given that it is a large stage and the puppets used seem small in compairison. It is however a brave soul that does a Children’s Show at the Fringe and this mans’ bravery has certainly paid off.
4/5 
Catriona Ruth Paterson
