#grinpayne

[vinesandvellichor]

It's finally spring and The Green Barge is about to embark on the Great West Way from Bristol Harbour to London. With so many miles and locks to cover, their little troupe has a month-long meander to prepare the for the capital and make it their best puppet show yet.

A modern AU concept (and fic that exists solely within the labyrinth of my mind): The Puppet Theatre Barge but make it TGM.

[ta-divchyna]

Well, my friends—in March 2026, The Grinning Man was performed in France!

L’Homme qui rit at Plus Petit Cirque du Monde

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[vinesandvellichor]

[dearest-im-so-sorry]

Any fans of The Grinning man? I made this!

[annaskellington]

Grinning Man

Release Date: October, 2016

Date of the boot: Pro-Shot – 2016

Watched Date: July 4, 2025

The wonders that one hot man does to a show, y'all hear me out.

Okay, I didn’t hate this. But I also didn’t love it. There was so much potential, like shit tons of potential. Louis Maskell was the absolute carry of this show as Grinpayne, if it wasn’t for him, I don’t think this show would’ve worked. Julian Bleach as Barkilphedro also offered a wonderful twisted side to the story. Whereas Grinpayne, even with all his sorrow and agony, maintained some hopefulness and love, Barkilphedro had nothing but pain to offer. Audrey Brisson as Dea was also quite wonderful even if her character struggled for development, all she did or said was about Grinpayne, it’s like they forgot to actually build a character for her (I love her and I'll hurt anyone that harms her but she does not pass the Bechdel Test at all).

Which leads me into my main problems with the show: the writing and, sometimes, the music.

The actors were all wonderful and I’m sure they did what they could with the script but I really do think that there were many kinks to be worked out with the script. I know it’s based on the Victor Hugo novel so maybe the story is exactly the same as the book, but I really do think that the characters didn’t quite “move”, they were always kept at surface level. With 2h30 you could’ve done so much more, there were wonderful ideas but they needed to tighten up the story a lot more (for example, whilst a part of me understands why Grinpayne went to Josiana in Act II, another part of me doesn’t feel like there was enough justification for his actions nor consequences, Dea deserved so much more).

The other big problem are the songs. There were really good songs and melodies in it, but many of the songs were rather forgettable or focused on characters that frankly did not need a song. Everything seemed very surface level, even Grinpayne’s sadness and agony, we needed more of him and Dea and Ursus instead of focusing far too much on the royal family who had almost no purpose other than comedic relief and served as plot point to advance the plot. But, even through all this, I did enjoy it quite a lot.

Update: It's been a couple of days and I'm throughly hooked, I really enjoy rewatching all the Grinpayne's scenes, I think Louis did a exceptional job. I've also discovered that they changed quite a lot for the West End transfer but there are basically no videos of it. I found the live recording of the West End production and immediately noticed some things like they removed the "will you take the pain away?" part from Beauty and The Beast (how dare this was a personal attack to my person) and Broken Children is sung in private instead of in front of everyone, Grinpayne just jumps to I Am The Freak Show and they don't do the Beauty and the Beast small reprise (another affront to my character, they hate me I guess). I can't say much else about changes in the story itself since I haven't been able to actually find out what they did, but the people seemed to like it so maybe they fixed all the problems I had with it. Now, release the goddamn album you cowards.

What songs are going on my playlist: Beauty And The Beast, I Am the Freak Show, Broken Children and Labyrinth (anything Louis sang was crazy good)

Favourite character(s): Obviously, Grinpayne

Moment/Scene enjoyed the most: I enjoyed the scenes where Grinpayne is acting all creepy so basically when he first was introduced and when he first showed his face, also the act 1 finisher when he removes his mask and is twitching.

NEXT LETTER - H

[southwarkfair]

for completions sake

[grinpain]

my idea is Grinpayne & Dea both having A Mouth Kink bc obviously you gotta work with what you got and when your lover doesn’t have lips you’re gonna have A Thing for Biting….. this is the point of at least three of my current sexy WIPs for them including my rewrite where Grinpayne doesn’t go to meet Jojo and instead has beautiful bisexual transgender disabled sex with his awesome girlfriend. augh I can’t give away my exact thoughts because I want to get to it in the fic aaaa