London’s Fringe theatre will burst back to
life after Lockdown
with
a new socially distanced
version of the acclaimed musical
Fanny & Stella
the premiere production at the Garden
Theatre, Eagle London
This open-air production will be
staged in the specially renovated garden of
The Eagle, 349 Kennington Lane, London, SE11
Book and Lyrics by Glenn Chandler (the creator
of ‘Taggart’)
Music by Charles
Miller
Directed by Steven Dexter
Musical Staging by Nick Winston
Musical direction by Aaron Clingham
Designed by David Shields
for Ticket Sales, please click here: Bookings Link
This hugely entertaining romp is based on bizarre events and real characters in Victorian London.
Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park were two young men who, in 1871, were put on trial in London for dressing as women and conspiracy to commit sodomy, a felony at the time. They dressed up as women (and were very good at it) for amateur theatricals, but when the show was over, and sometimes when there wasn’t even any show, as ‘Fanny and Stella’ they would frequent places of entertainment in the West End where men encountered men for sex and male prostitutes plied their trade.
Park
and Boulton were acquitted - an amazing victory for the time when sexual acts between men
carried a sentence of two years - primarily because conspiracy could not be proved. Or
perhaps it was because one had a father who was a judge, and
the other a mother who swayed the court with her tears. Upon their acquittal, Park and
Boulton - as Fanny and Stella - along with their theatre company, take their story on the
road. They hire a venue for “one night only” to tell their amazing true
story of their lives, their trial, and their sensational acquittal. But are they in an
ungiving age putting themselves on trial a second time?