Stage: Two 19th century tales

Fanny & Stella: The Shocking True Story
by Glenn Chandler • music Charles Miller • dir Steven Dexter
Above the Stag, Vauxhall • 8.May-2.Jun.19

Pearce as the trial judge

Originally staged in 2015 at Above the Stag's previous venue, this musical gets a welcome revival on a bigger stage. Based on real events, it's a sharply well-written exploration of gender and equality set in 1870 London. Writer Glenn Chandler sets out the story as a musical hall variety show, using comedy and witty songs to recount a series of events involving cross-dressing performers Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton (Tobias Charles and Kieran Parrott). Their alter egos Fanny and Stella hilariously re-enact their story as entertainers on The Strand who cavort around town with their wealthy benefactors. They get in trouble with the law for leaving the theatre in drag, but were never convicted of sodomy. The show recounts their relationships with various men, including Lord Arthur Clinton (Christian Andrews), Louis Charles Hurt (Tom Mann) and American diplomat John Safford Fiske (Blair Robertson).

All of this is played with a cheeky sense of humour on a vaudeville stage, as the actors continually torment the theatre manager Grimes (Mark Pearce) by demanding random personality traits and accents in the side roles he's playing. Each of the six actors plays multiple roles as the story unfolds, bringing a lively sense of raucous energy to each scene. And Chandler keeps the narrative moving briskly along, packing in fascinating real-life details along with the amusing musical numbers, which are infused with eyebrow-raising innuendo. The staging is superb, with subtle set changes that make the most of the witty costumes and the side entrances, which are through closets.

The real Boulton and Park

Through all of this, the uniformly excellent cast layers the general silliness with subtle but powerful emotional resonance that extends to some knowing thematic commentary about how long it has taken society to grapple with the issue of human sexuality. Park and Boulton's scandalous trial predated Oscar Wilde's by 25 years, a full century before Stonewall. Frankly, this is an unmissable show. And it would easily work on an even bigger stage.

NOTE: I also reviewed Above the Stag's staging of Fanny & Stella in May 2015.

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The Swell Mob
by Flabbergast Theatre
Colab Factory, London Bridge • 4.May-25.Aug.19

A hit on the Edinburgh Fringe, this immersive theatre experience takes audiences back to a swirly, surreal version of 1830s Britain. The audience and the actors mix together in a wildly ornate pub, drinking bathtub gin and whispering secrets as a preacher orates in the corner and a dog sleeps through the ruckus on a sofa. It's a ribald evening full of activities, including dance, puppetry and cabaret. A croupier encourages me to place a bet on a bare-knuckle fight held in the basement. The match is electrically well-choreographed and thrilling (alas, his betting tip was off). In a back room, a shady lady leads us in a seance to figure out how to escape from this lurid place. It has something to do with the lowlands and Layla, a woman who seems to be everywhere I turn, telling me crazy things. A lonely man with a bleached-white face is lurking as well, and no one seems to be able to see him. Later someone gets shot. There are boisterous songs, and a climactic moment of soul-sucking horror.

The cast is flat-out excellent, bringing earthy physicality and vivid personality to each role, interacting easily with the audience. Although what all of this means is somewhat unclear. This is one of those events at which the more you get involved, the more your own narrative begins to take shape. At the centre of the performance is a supernatural mystery, so all of the instructions, songs and dramas work together to create both atmosphere and a story.

It's certainly a vivid experience, made even more fun by the fact that they encourage you to dress in costume to make it even more difficult to tell who's part of the show and who's in the audience. But then, everyone's part of this show. And it's a lot of lively fun. It's also the kind of event you could return to several times and find a new story each time. But be warned: if you don't work at it, the plot is elusive, leaving lots of atmosphere but little that grabs hold.

Shadows on the Stage: Public outrage!

Fanny & Stella
dir Steven Dexter • scr Glenn Chandler • music Charles Miller
Above The Stag, Vauxhall • 13.May-14.Jun.15

Based on the real story of Victorian cross-dressers Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, this is a fiendishly clever musical that mixes the gleefully rude comedy of a 19th century music hall with a striking story of identity and sexuality. Played with hilariously flirtatious energy and surprising underlying pathos by Robert Jeffrey and Marc Gee Finch, Ernest/Stella and Frederick/Fanny are theatre performers whose arrest in 1870 sparked a flood of scandalous headlines about these "he-she ladies". Of course, the crime wasn't dressing as a woman on stage, but parading in the streets and having relationships with men.

Chandler's script cleverly casts all of this as a bawdy theatrical production with six actors playing a variety of roles - including a witty running gag in which Phil Sealey must adapt his performance on the spot to fit whatever character he's playing now. The dialog and songs are packed with puns and innuendo, playing with language in ways that actually make an important point even as they make us laugh. All of this is inventively staged in the small space at Above The Stag with a set that pointedly requires the actors to enter and leave the stage through closets. The intimacy also creates a lot of hilarious interaction with the audience, which adds to the snappy script and riotously silly tone. But what lingers is the power of the story itself, which catches in several moments of raw emotion that bring intense resonance for 21st century audience members.

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Product
dir Robert Shaw
scr Mark Ravenhill
Arcola, Dalston
27.Apr-23.May.15

This one-woman show, brilliantly performed by Olivia Poulet, is a lacerating satire about Hollywood. And it's so cleverly written that studio executives might not understand why we're all laughing at it. Poulet plays Leah, who is pitching a project to a top actress, going through the script and punching everything that might appeal to an A-lister. This means that the play works on two levels. First, it draws us into the story in the script, about a workaholic who finds love with a Muslim jihadist, which is unexpected because her husband was killed in the 9/11 attacks. This story is hilariously recounted by Poulet with added stage directions, back-stories and even musical cues in an attempt to bring it to life for the star.

But of course the real point is to explore how Hollywood exploits real-life tragedies to make some cash, while manipulating an audience to think that this is somehow entertaining, warping the very nature of both storytelling and artistry in the process. Ravenhill's script pulls no punches at all; this play goes for the jugular without ever getting preachy about it. And Poulet's Leah shows more than a little desperation, while her reactions make it clear that the unseen actress isn't buying her hard-sell. All of this is done with continual laugh-out-loud punch lines so hilariously sharp that they stop us in our tracks every time we begin to buy into the sales pitch. Genius.