TNT Theatre Britain presents:
GULLIVER´s TRAVELS
by Jonathan Swift
Adapted and directed by Paul Stebbings
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS is one of the most significant and widely read classics of English literature, and has been since its publication in 1726. George Orwell called it “one of the ten best books ever written”, and on its original publication it was hailed as being “read from the nursery to the houses of parliament”. TNT’s acclaimed version has the same appeal, an entertaining adventure story as well as a profound analysis of the human condition.
Jonathan Swift´s utopian satirical novel is often misinterpreted as a children’s story but has never been anything of the sort ! TNT will rescue this literary masterpiece from the pygmies who tried to turn it into a juvenile entertainment and create a play that asks us the very mature questions that Swift was posing three hundred years ago:
What is the moral basis of government? What is the value of money? What is the aim of science? And finally, when humans behave like vicious animals why should they be valued higher than beasts?
Each of these questions is addressed by Swift in his travels to four different lands – not only Lilliput. TNT dramatise each of the four journeys and because satire is only sharp if it is contemporary, we naturally apply Swift’s critique to our own troubled world.
The production will be revived in 2026/27 and Gulliver will travel from Estonia to Spain. Join us on the greatest fictional voyage, a voyage not only to wild lands peopled with mad scientists and talking horses but into our own selves.
The production has toured from China to Malta and Germany to Malaysia. It has been performed in simple school halls and the National Centre for performing Arts in Beijing. One of Europe’s leading newspapers described this TNT production in detail:
The story was ascribed to a fictional author, namely Lemuel Gulliver, who has experienced amazing adventures as a ship’s doctor and later as a captain. He not only travelled into the land of Lilliputs and to the island of giants Brobdingnang, but also the flying island Laputa, who’s inhabitants are so intensly involved in mathematics, music and astronomy that they are almost unable to develop personal relationships.
His fourth journey brings Gulliver to a country which is ruled by coldly intelligent horses and inhabited by brutal human beasts, the Yahoos. The piece is performed in an almost musical style, with live music and songs. Paul Stebbings brilliantly transforms his actors from dwarfs to giants. First Gulliver on stilts seems excessively large against all the others crawling on their knees because, like Prometheus, the giant Gulliver is captured by the petty self-important little people of Lilliput. The satire on the rulers of the kingdom of Lilliput was hilarious and at the same time sharp and well–observed. On the other hand, the giants of the kingdom of Brobdignag on their stills appear alarmingly dangerous.
The highlight of the performance is the last scene where the horses place Gulliver under more and more pressure, joined by the Yahoos. This is where Swifts satire on human folly most impressively comes into its own.
Expected duration: 1:45 hours, including 15 min. interval