Wonderful Beast is dedicated to bringing the delight, wonder, fear, magic and excitement of these mesmerising stories– be they mighty myths or the simplest of fairy tales - to as wide an audience as possible. Music is at the heart of all its work.

What we do

Wonderful Beast stages productions and storytelling events, and delivers outreach workshops and performances. The company has an established a reputation for high quality interactive educational work with primary age children and recently has delivered inter-generational projects in remote rural areas in Suffolk. The work is frequently cross-cultural drawing on a broad range of art forms, languages and traditions. It has performed in many venues in London, toured nationally and internationally (India) and is currently planning to expand its reach through creating a weekend event of storytelling for children and local families, who have little access to the performing arts, and all those who love stories and live theatre.

Objectives

• to deliver productions, storytelling and musical events, and workshops that are imaginative, inclusive, entertaining and life changing
• to explore different cultures and traditions, highlighting the common roots and themes of stories, by performing tales from around the world
• to recover the sense of wonder, danger and darkness in familiar tales which have all too often been sweetened and sanitised
• to bring together diverse audiences through outreach, touring and performing in more remote and unusual venues
• to form partnerships with regional and national arts organisations and artists

'My approach to theatre arose out of my reluctance to be pigeon holed as a musician, and from my earliest work in education where children did not make the distinction as to whether they were musicians, actors, or dancers but embraced all disciplines as though it were the natural order of things.'

Alys was brought up in Aldeburgh where she studied the piano with Imogen Holst. She continued her music studies at Dartington Arts Centre and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1976 she became a primary school teacher. During the course of her teaching she developed a passion for myths and fairy tales. Having staged many productions in school, often in partnership with visiting companies such as London Contemporary Dance, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, and the Almeida Education Department, she left to freelance as a music workshop leader with Children’s Music Workshop. It was after attending Tim Supple’s miraculous production of Grimm Tales, at the Young Vic in 1994 that she decided to form Wonderful Beast. She gathered a group of like-minded artists and friends around her, and in 1997 produced The Birth of Pleasure (the story of Cupid and Psyche) at The Rosemary Branch, Islington, directed by Penny Cherns, and written by Jehane Markham. Since then she has never stopped producing and directing productions, storytelling events, Research and Development workshops, and outreach.

THE COMPANY

Artistic Director: Alys Kihl
Administrator: Louisa Thorp

Board of Directors
Ann Blaber (Chair)
Christopher Lucas CBE
Liz Calder
Jonathan Franklin

Artistic Committee
Ann Blaber
Ruth Paton
Roger Lloyd Pack
Sasha Mitchell

Patrons
Simon Callow
Caryl Churchill
Sir Ian Holm
Gemma Jones
Penelope Wilton
Marina Warner

Recent funders

The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust
The Adnams Charity

As well as making the normal fundraising applications, Wonderful Beast puts on fundraising storytelling events in which celebrated artists, including our own patrons perform. These popular Benefits have taken place at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill, The Almeida Theatre, and The Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh.

Wonderful Beast's fundraising events