The fantastic theatre company Tall Stories (The Gruffalo) brought to life some of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and Darwin's theories of evolution in "How the Giraffe Got His Neck". They looked at myth and Kipling's explanations and then looked at the even more fun explanation of evolution. My son was able to explain the reason for the sizes of different finch beaks at the end.
With just a cast of two this is a fantastic piece of work and it successfully avoids any of Kipling's apalling explicit racism - yep be careful if you read Kipling aloud to your kids and you haven't read it for years... see here for example... I had to stop... this is too horrible even for words... just read it... This is taken from "How the Leopard got it's spots"
I feel a bit sick now...
Approach Kipling with caution!
Still he drew great pictures...
I digress - thankfully Tall Stories debunk Kipling in a fun way and entertain and educate at the same time.
Shame this isn't touring anymore but Tall Stories are still producing great work (currently Mr Benn).
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