Four classic Fairy Tales, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Emperor's New Clothes and Billy Goats Gruff, are re-invigorated and updated by contemporary writers – Ed Roe, Richard Pinto, Anil Gupta, Debbie Horsfield, Jeremy Dyson and brought to life by the very best in British acting talent.
Tale 1: Rapunzel
Updated by Ed Roe (Smack The Pony, Teachers, No Angels). The original fairy tale told the story of a girl with incredibly long hair, thought to be based on the legend of Saint Barbara, who was locked in a tower by her father and was made famous by the Brothers Grimm, who coined the catchphrase 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair'. Ed's updated Rapunzel is set in the competitive world of tennis and tells the story of a failing male tennis player, Jimmy Stojkovic (Lee Ingleby). Jimmy is persuaded by his errant father, Sava (Shaun Williamson) to disguise himself as a woman in a final attempt to win the grand slam tennis final.
Tale 2: Cinderella
In our version Cindy is a cleaner at a university. She is deeply fascinated by anthropology, but despite being very bright and having a broad knowledge (self-taught) of the subject, she doesn't have the qualifications to pursue her dream of becoming an academic. She's kept in her place by two research students, Phoebe and Fenola (the ugly sisters), and the Head of the Anthropology department, Professor Brooks (the wicked stepmother). It looks like she's destined for a life below stairs, until the arrival at the university of Professor H Prince, a very modern academic, media savvy and photogenic, who's desperate to show the world his phallus...
Tale 3: The Empress's New Clothes
In The Empress's New Clothes, just as the emperor defines himself through his fine clothes, Debbie's heroine, soap star Michaela (Denise Van Outen) is slavish to fashion to an extraordinarily high degree and hell bent on outshining her co-star and arch-rival Shekeelia (Koel Purie) at the Silver Sphere Awards, the highlight in the soap opera calendar. Such obsession with expensive clothes and belongings can only lead to downfall and as we all know from the original story – nudity.
Tale 4: Billy Goat
Jeremy's reworked version brings the story up-to-date and centres on Billy Goat, a boy band made up of brothers Connor (Paul Nicholls) and Dean Gruff (Mathew Horne) and friend Rafiq Bhavani (played by newcomer Nick Mohammed). They enjoy local success in Northern clubs but crave pastures new and fame and fortune. "I am an avid X-Factor viewer and when Billy Goat was taking shape I'd just started watching the last series. There's no doubt it fed into the conception of the story," says Jeremy. However, there is one major stumbling block, their manager is a troll. In this world, trolls live side-by-side with humans and Billy Goat are unfortunate enough to have bagged a canny and threatening troll as their manager, Grettongrat, played by Bernard Hill.
Reviews
Unfortunately we have no reviews of these programmes as yet, if you have any, please let us know!
But we do have a preview video!
Fairy Tales is available to buy on DVD
video - check out our Shop page
Important Notice
Paul Nicholls Online (PNO) and it's associated mailing list, Greeny, are entirely unofficial. PNO is not connected to or endorsed by Paul Nicholls or his agents. Any views expressed are entirely personal and are not to be held as representative of the views or opinions of Paul Nicholls or his agents. Information presented on PNO has been taken from various sources considered to be reliable and accurate, however PNO can not accept any responsibility for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies on this site.
Buy
It? 
Unfortunately we have no reviews of these programmes as yet, if you have any, please let us know!