Whilst driving up the motorway last Saturday I received a call from a friend.
“I’ve got two tickets to see Neil Gaiman talking with Philip Pullman about fairy tales on Monday, but can’t go. Do you want them?”
After shouting “Yes!” repeatedly at the hands-free kit, I found myself sat in the audience at the Cambridge Theatre on Monday evening. It was clear that the event was a sell-out – the place was rammed. The theatre normally hosts the excellent musical ‘Matlida’, and I loved the brightly-coloured jumble of letters that formed the stage surround.
The event was introduced by host Rosie Boycott, who announced that Philip Pullman was sadly unable to join us that evening. Apparently he had taken a fall earlier in the day and wasn’t well enough to attend. This was quite disappointing (and I hope he recovers quickly), but in his stead we were introduced to our Philip Pullman ‘impersonator’ for the evening, children’s author Meg Rosoff. In addition, Audrey Niffenegger (of The Time Traveler’s Wife fame) was also hauled out of the audience to do a reading of The Three Snake Leaves from Pullman’s Grimm Tales (a retelling of the classic tales).
Despite Mr Pullman’s absence, the conversation was both interesting and entertaining. It threw up some aspects of fairy tales that I hadn’t considered before, but that I felt were worth sharing. Let me list them in an exciting, bullet-point style for you:
A couple of months ago I read what is currently the latest 
