Emma Rice. Blue Beard Review ★★★★★

A blue beard sporting Mother Superior, ruling over the Convent of the Three Fs – Fearful, F*cked and Furious; a smarmy magician who seduces his soon-to-be wife with his trick of sawing her in half, and his cartwheeling acrobatic assistant; a lost boy with a story to tell: these are just some of the characters of Emma Rice’s latest theatrical offering, Blue Beard, where a riotous first half draws in the unwary audience the better to land the second half’s powerful punch that sends you reeling into the night.

Over the years Emma Rice’s boundless imagination and acute theatricality have given us unforgettable stage experiences, among them Tristan and Yseult and Brief Encounter, which she created with her previous company Kneehigh.

Now with her new company Wise Children Rice has turned her attention to the 17th century folktale of Blue Beard, the domineering murderous lord, whose new wife disobeys his order not to open a locked room in his castle and finds the bloody bodies of her murdered predecessors.

In typical fashion she turns this tale into a kind of multifaceted cabaret, where disparate strands blend and seem to clash, linked by Stu Barker’s catchy musical score and orchestrated with extraordinary flair by Katy Owen as the Mother Superior, finally leading to a scorching denunciation of men’s violence against women.

After some amusing banter Mother Superior introduces the main characters:a recently widowed woman (Patrycja Kujawska) grieving for her loving husband, and her two daughters, Lucky (Robyn Sinclair) and Trouble (Stephanie Hockley); the vaguely sinister magician (a very good turn by Emma Rice veteran Stuart Turrrock); the Lost Brother (Adam Mirsky) crying for help, and the Lost Sister (Mirabelle Gremaud), a budding singer. How the siblings fit in the overall tale won’t become clear until the final reveal.

The eight-strong cast are multi-talented, acting, singing, dancing and playing a variety of musical instruments as they enact the tale: Lucky, finding her freedom after a life of being sheltered by her over-protective father, is hopelessly seduced by the magician and his exciting aura of danger.

Or, as Mother Superior, always at hand to offer a wry commentary on the action, puts it, ‘love is the perfect set of silky black blinkers’.

The first half ends with Lucky’s disobedience and gruesome discovery; the shorter second half turns the tables on Blue Beard as the women fight back in a scene of intense, drawn out violence that ends with his death; after which the modern day relevance of this old tale becomes disturbingly clear in a big reveal that brings home the horror of the ever present male violence against women.No spoilers as to how, though.

Blue Beard is not up there with Emma Rice’s best; but she’s set the bar so high, that saying this in no way detracts from the work’s ability to entertain and shock in equal measure with its seamless blend of centuries old folk tale and modern day reality.

Blue Beard comes to London as part of Battersea Arts Centre 50th Anniversary celebrations.

Age Guidance: 14+