Building on National Theatre Wales’s history of creating exciting theatre in amazing places, the company will stage its first Christmas show at Cardiff Castle – a large-scale, musical production for children and very silly adults, adapted from the Fairy Tales of Monty Python’s Terry Jones.

This interactive, family-friendly show will be packed with Pythonesque coconut shells, slapstick humour and live music from Groove Armada’s Patrick Dawes, all in a huge, heated Spiegeltent in Cardiff ’s glorious Castle.

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away lived a princess, four crazy knights, an angry fairy, a dragon (of sorts) and a very Silly King….

The cast, which features musicans and circus performers as well as actors, will include Remy Beasley, Stephen Casey, Kier Charles, George Fuller, Maxwell James, Hannah McPake, Sion Pritchard and Matthew Woodyatt.

Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay , North Wales , and is best known as part of Monty Python. Jones and the other Pythons got together in 1969 and wrote and performed Monty Python’s Flying Circus until 1974. Jones co-directed the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam in 1975 and directed Monty Python’s Life of Brian in 1979 and Monty Python’s Meaning of Life in 1981, which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes . Fairy Tales, on which Silly Kings is based, was his first children’s book, published in 1981. It has been translated into six foreign editions and adapted for television and radio. Director Jo Davies has worked as a director and associate director at the ENO, The Royal Opera House, the National Theatre and the Barbican. Jo has also mounted operas, plays and musicals worldwide, most recently in France , Italy and the US .

National Theatre Wales presents Silly Kings at Cardiff Castle between December 19 2013 and January 4 2014 Contact the Box Office: nationaltheatrewales.org / WMC 029 2063 6464 for further details.