The Storyteller (Season 1)

The Storyteller (1988) is a British-American fantasy series produced by the Jim Henson Company — watch online on iFILM. John Hurt sits by a fire as the old storyteller, a sardonic puppet dog at his side, and narrates one European folk tale per episode. Nine half-hour stories, each drawn from a different tradition, each capable of ending somewhere you did not expect.

The guest cast across the series includes Miranda Richardson, Sean Bean, Brenda Blethyn, Jonathan Pryce and Gabrielle Anwar. Multiple directors worked on the episodes, Jim Henson among them. The tone is not what the word "fairy tale" usually suggests — there is genuine darkness here, a sense that the old stories carried real stakes and real cruelty, and Henson's creative team did not sand that down for the sake of comfort.

Hurt's performance is the anchor: he tells these stories as though he was present when they happened. The handmade puppet effects and practical sets give the whole series a texture that has aged far better than most late-eighties television. Stream all episodes of The Storyteller online on iFILM.