The Fabulist Fox Sister ☆☆☆☆
Southwark Playhouse
It never ceases to surprise me how seemingly obscure places composers/writers go to find inspiration for new musicals . The Fabulist Fox Sister is one such case, loosely based on a story so wonderfully weird that it had to be true. Or did it?
The very existence of the American Fox Sisters in the 1800’s was totally new to me, but now I know that Kate the younger of the sisters was famous for her séances which marked the start of spiritualism. Except of course they were fakes.
So the musical starts in 1892, and Kate now 44 years old (played by Micheal Conley) having got through several husbands and even more bottles of bourbon, is holding her very final seance in her apartment. She is bored and wants to retire. The spirits she is allegedly conjuring up this time are those of her dead sisters Margaret and Leah.
She wants them to help tell the story of their rise to fame and fortune and how they lost it all, except Kate really is only interested in her version of what happened.
It all starts slowly but Conley who is superbly convincing as the charlatan who still wants to appear innocent even whilst he sings about her fraud soon lights up the place. Dressed in widows black with his sardonic wit in this hilarious parody, Conley strikes you somewhat as a Victorian Randy Rainbow.
This American story works so well because Conley (also the writer) and composer Luke Bateman give it a quintessential British take on this very lovable eccentric matron. We have absolutely no idea of what is true and what isn’t , but it is all so blissfully, we really do not care.
Conley’s compelling performance makes this one-woman-show a sheer joy to watch, and makes us wish that Kate was still holding sequences even if they are ‘fake news”.
The Fabulist Fox Sister is streaming online until Jan 31st https://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/
Labels: 2021, London Theatre, review
