Ryan Gladstone is quite  amazing because he doesn’t seem to fit into any accepted categories.   Part  stand up comic, part mime, part professor of comparative literature, popular culture and   theories of Narratologie,  and he is also a very  smooth actor. You cant beat that.

On stage, he saunters out with his hands in his pockets, like some cocky lecturer in front of a whole auditorium of young adults who aren’t sure what they have signed up for. Then, he  begins telling stories. In fact he tells  all the stories that exist (according to him)  by condensing them down into their  basic plot  structures and then inserting the characters  from many many novels just to show us how many of these writings have similar origins. He did hilarious capsules of War and Peace, of  Great Expectations – the fatter the novel the juicier the performance – , of  Cinderella, of  Carmen, of Greek classics, of the Tales of the Arabian nights,  of the Bronte sisters, and the Walkürie, as well as  the really horrible authentic versions of Grimm¹s fairy tales which  you don’t what your children to read!  He had us all in stitches.

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