Overview
‘Let’s have all the skeletons out of the closet, today, of all days!’
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 75th 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.
Emma Rice (Romantics Anonymous, Tristan & Yseult, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk and Brief Encounter) brings her unique, exuberantly impish vision to Angela Carter’s great last novel, Wise Children, launching her new theatre company of the same name and its London residency at The Old Vic.