Are you an Emily, Charlotte or Anne? Are you modest with a wry humour? A visionary with a powerful imagination? Or the shy one with a big heart? Essentially, which Brontë sister are you? Well here to answer that question are Scary Little Girls with their fabulous gallop through the work of the Brontës. They have taken residence in Blackwell's politics and ethics department (really a fabulous performing space) and with the help of Creation Theatre have brought along their cabaret show, The Full Brontë.
The wealth of material that the three sisters produced in their short lives (they were 30, 29, and 38 respectively when they died) has been studied, adapted, critiqued and praised ever since their works were first published. I shall confess to being a mere Brontë dabbler, as opposed to a fully fledged Brontëphile, having only read Jane Eyre (Charlotte), and Wuthering Heights (Emily), and having never reached Anne's writing. This doesn't really impact the enjoyment of The Full Brontë as the duo at the heart of the show welcome you in a warm literary embrace. There is clearly a degree of factual information Scary Little Girls have fed into their show but it feels like a good comedy show first, and an advert for the majesty of the Brontës second.
It all focuses on the duo at the heart of the show, who bring a confidence and a willingness to engage with the audience. Rebecca Mordan, in the guise of Maria de Plume, is the star of the cabaret, while Amy Tweed supports her in all other roles (ensemble, props, costumes, music, special effects) as Brannie. Marie is crafted as a performer with a fabulous ego, with Mordan bringing a fierce talent for sharp improvised one liners to the role; while Brannie is an endearingly sweet creation,
'An Evening of Wuthering Delights' is the promise this show offers and I can confirm that throughout the hour I chortled and guffawed my way through many an amusing one-liner. A true test for an evening of comedy is how much it makes you laugh, and with The Full Brontë the answer is that it is a very successful evening of comedy. It can often feel that the theatre scene shuts down for the month of August and relocates to the Edinburgh Fringe. But with Creation Theatre partnering with Scary Little Girls you can banish the green-eyed monster and laugh your way through a chunk of nineteenth-century literature. You may even learn a fact or two whilst you're there.