
Wise Children
4 (53) · Contemporary, New Writing
‘Let’s have all the skeletons out of the closet, today, of all days!’
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Overview
It’s 23 April, Shakespeare’s birthday.
In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance – twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river – are celebrating their 70th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation Melchior Hazard turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he’s still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all…
A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity – and butterflies by the thousand.
Critic reviews
Razzle-dazzle showbiz twins bewitch and delight in an inventive, smart and saucy production
Emma Rice returns with racy, joyful oddity inspired by Angela Carter
Emma Rice launches her new company with a messy, melancholic and occasionally magical staging of Angela Carter's final novel
This celebration of showbiz and the value of family is glorious — a controlled explosion of theatrical glee
Emma Rice's new company, also called Wise Children, opens its first production, an adaptation of Angela Carter's novel Wise Children
Angela Carter's love letter to the stage works better on the page
Emma Rice returns to the London stage with an exuberant celebration of theatre
Rice’s production is one that rightly glitters with the childlike wonder and delight of Carter’s work but never shies away from how wisdom is hard gained