Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness

Synopsis

Prodigy, Soldier, Traveller, Poet, but always and ever a Showman! In 1881, one of the Victorian theatre's most enigmatic impresarios, Mr Edward Gant, presented his famed travelling show for the very last time.

Our Review:

2 April 2009

Anthony Neilson’s spuriously delightful, slightly weird evening of Victorian mystery and magic in a travelling freak show was first seen at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth seven years ago. If it didn’t cross your radar then (as it didn’t mine), this co-production by Headlong and the Nuffield, Southampton, is an almost necessary treat.

The eponymous impresario welcomes us to his strange universe where freakish occurrences are the symptoms of human unhappiness. Gant himself is a bizarre emcee, projected with a leer, a swirl of his cape and a glittering eye by Simon Kunz, and his stories are enacted by the upright, slightly dazed Sam Cox as Jack Dearlove, the face-pulling Emma Handy as clucking Madame Poulet, and the powerfully resentful Paul Barnhill as the disillusioned Nicholas Ludd.

The travelling show is on the skids, but not before we have the full flourish of footlights and plush curtains, one-dimensional scenery, spooky stories, strange effects ...

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Latest User Review

Gareth James - 11 April 2009:

David Neilson has cornered the market in the surreal and the absurd. This one starts as a re-creation of a Victorian freak show but soon goes off in unexpected directions. The set is stunning and the performances exceptional, but somehow it's all a bit pointless....

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