PARENTING ARTICLES & TIPS

Emma Chambers is perhaps best known for her role as Alice, the dizzy verger in The Vicar of Dibley , for which she won a 1998 British Comedy Award for Best Actress. She also starred as Charity Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit , and in The Secret Garden and Drop The Dead Donkey . On film, she has appeared as William's zany sister Honey in ' Notting Hill and in Bridget Jones's Diary and Mickey Blue Eyes . Her many theatre credits include Tartuffe at the Almeida, Trelawney of the Wells and Invisible friends at the Royal National Theatre and Henceforward in the West End.

It is Midsummer's Eve. Blossom, the Royal Dressmaker, and her assistants, Nightwing, Fancy, Trip and Pod, are hard at work. The Fairy Queen must have her new dress by midnight in time for the Midsummer Ball, and there are still a thousand pearls to be sewn on to it!

To pass the time they take turns telling stories — stories no human child has ever heard before. For these are fairy tales as told by the fairies, and though some of them may seem just a little familiar, they have a most unusual viewpoint.

Now you can eavesdrop on the fairies as they chat to each other and tell their stories.
Stories told by the fairies: The Seahorse and the Kelpie King When I was a tooth Fairy Princess Curly Long Locks The Shoemaker and the Robber Elves One Pumpkin, Five Dears and Three Good Wishes