Fringe Extra Barnstaple

Dandelion Girl

Rosamund Clare

Dandelion Girl is a wild ride of a story! Featuring a wicked stepmother, a wager and a headless body in a cave in Wales, it is part romance, part action-adventure and part fairytale.

North Devon-based performance storyteller, Rosamund Clare, took inspiration from Shakespeare’s late play Cymbeline, and from one of his most unforgettable heroines. The play may be named for her father, but Imogen is the undisputed star of the show. Warm, loyal, loving and strong. And just a little bit wild. The story lends itself to the intimacy and immediacy of storytelling performance, particularly with its echoes of fairytales, but it is not one for the children.

Rosamund said: ‘Working with the play and reforming it as an oral tradition piece allows new elements to rise to the surface. Things that didn’t seem important take on new relevance. And that’s really exciting - watching this tale shift and change and speak directly to us.’

As an actor and director, Rosamund is no stranger to the bard and has an MA in ‘Staging Shakespeare’ from the University of Exeter. As a storyteller, she has performed at schools, libraries, festivals, theatres and pubs, and is one half of the Suited Storytellers.

Review by Robert Barber 30/06/2024

If you thought, like me, that Fairy tales were old hat and surely nothing more can be squeezed from the genre since Disney has done its work; then how wrong we all are. Rosamund Clare’s Dandelion Girl at this year’s Barnstaple Fringe proved that the Fairy tale is entertaining, thought provoking and as rich as it ever has been.

It’s the way you tell it! Of course it is; The Bard of Stratford had made a good job of this tale, but Rosamund brings a lifetime’s experience to her telling of the story. Her eloquence and deft use of language paints pictures of sweeping Welsh valleys up to the rugged foothills to a welcoming cave and a cooler contrasting neighbouring cavern. Characters are given colour through the gentlest variation of voice without missing a beat of the enthralling telling. The spare set is used to touch in relationships, action and even death requiring the subtlest of moves to enhance the rhythms of the enveloping flow of prose that irresistibly unfurl the story.

The Princess’ life is, as one might expect in a Fairy Tale, not an easy one. Liberty and free choice are in very short supply, so too is good parenting, even her name is a spelling mistake. By this time, we are entirely under Rosamund’s spell, she swaggers, postures as a man illustrating the difficulties for the princess to pass unnoticed as a Paige. Fleeting moments of stage business is enough to fix the picture in our mind, so the story effortlessly moves on through the grisly moments of brutality and on to the denouement that we are told is going to be complicated and we must listen carefully. A redundant request, we were all so wrapped we could do nothing less than “listen carefully”, and it wasn’t complicated it was simply magical, believable and just beautiful.

Rosamund not only proved that Fairy tales are enduringly entertaining, an hour flew by, Through her wisdom of life she was able to draw out the joy that this ancient tale of ancient Britain is as much about pre as it is of post millennial people. There can be few better ways to spend an hour than listening to a well-told story. Rosamund does this with enchanting ease. A must see show!


Please note limited access and no wheelchair access to St Anne's.