CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Story of family Chance a fine thing in thrilling adaptation of Angela Carter novel
Fantastical: Bettrys Jones, Katy Owen and Mirabelle Gremaud in Wise Children
[Steve Tanner]
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Wise Children
The Old Vic, London
ANGELA CARTER’S last novel Wise Children, a blend of magic realism and carnivalesque, sprawls across much of the 20th century as it follows the bizarre theatrical family fortunes of the Chance twins from the perspective of their 75th birthday.
Unacknowledged by their father, a renowned Shakespearean actor-manager, the twin girls are brought up on the wrong side of the tracks in a Brixton theatrical boarding house run by Grandma Chance.
Forced to make their own way, they become chorus girls before weaving a successful career through the latter years of music hall and variety theatre as a song-and-dance duo.
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