7 Princesses

Performance Storytelling by Xanthe Gresham
Music by Arash Moradi

‘When night poured out its silken sack of musky black, King Bahrum, overcome by wine and love, asked the Black Princess with eyes like a gazelle, to open up her treasure box and tell him a tale….’

So begins the first of seven playful, poetic, and often deeply erotic tales.
Xanthe Gresham and Arash Moradi serve up a wild Persian fairytale. A labyrinthine epic of secret rooms, impatient passions, clever women, wigs, and a prince who wrestled his crown from the teeth of two wild lions to become King.

Nizami, one of the best loved Iranian epic poets, wrote The Seven Princesses or Haft Paykar in the 12th century AD, influencing generations of poets and storytellers across the world.

‘Vivid, magical and occasionally very bizarre’ Everything Theatre