Fanny & Stella: The Shocking True Story is irreverent, camp and hilarious!
NEVER a dull moment in this show, I was engaged from the moment I arrived to the moment I left the the theatre.
It’s not quite a musical, but more of a play with songs – Fanny & Stella is written by Glenn Chandler, with music by Charles Miller, directed by Steven Dexter and tastefully choreographed by Carole Todd.
The time is Victorian England, and Fanny & Stella kicks off with the cast explaining to the audience that Fanny (Tobias Charles) and Stella (Kieran Parrott) will be regaling us with the tale of their rise and fall – complete with ups, downs, twists, turns and medical examinations.
Although the format of the show meant the audience was sometimes included in the storytelling and at other times not, was slightly confusing to start, but the plot did not suffer for it in the slightest.
From the first moment the show begins, until the very end, the script and songs are over the top, lewd and full of camp. Double entendres abound in almost every scene, and the lead characters never miss an opportunity to make the owner of the working men’s club they are performing in feel worried he’ll be closed down for use of inappropriate language.
Each song manages to take the script another step further (my favourite song being Sodomy On The Strand). Each song was well placed and well paced. None particularly long, and whenever a song began you could feel the anticipation in the audience for whatever ridiculous lyric was about to come out.
Some songs were revisited twice or even three times which helped embed them into our memory, but they never felt forced or dull. The accompaniment, supplied by a lone piano, gave all of the music a very vaudevillian feel to it. For me, the songs were definitely the standout aspect of the production.
The cast of the show is rather small but very talented. Other than Fanny and Stella, the rest of the cast had multiple roles throughout (and even Fanny doubled up as Stella’s mother in a couple of scenes).
Mark Pearce, who is listed as playing Mr Grimes, in fact, played an insane amount of characters throughout the show and had everyone in the audience laughing loudly pretty much every time he came on stage. Christian Andrews, Tom Mann and Blair Robertson make up the rest of the cast, and each of them has plenty of moments where they shine. But Tobias and Kieran are the leading ladies of the show and for good reason. Their comedic timing was brilliant, and along with the entire cast, they had wonderful singing voices.
The story of Fanny & Stella is entirely rooted in truth. They really did exist in Victorian England, they performed in London and elsewhere in Britain, and they were put on trial for “inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence.”
They were drag performers, but both of them wore their female drag out and around the Strand in London, often accompanied by male escorts. The entire premise of the show may seem far removed from the believed prudishness of Victorian England, but clearly queer people were pushing boundaries even in the direst of times.
Fanny & Stella is outrageous, heartwarming and melancholy, but through it all, it is light and humorous and very, very gay. If you want to head down to the Above the Stag Theatre in Vauxhall (and I highly recommend that you do), Fanny & Stella: The Shocking True Story runs until June 2.
To book tickets online, click here:
Reviewed by James Cunningham-Curry.
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