Edward Gant's amazing feats of loneliness
Subtitle: as transcribed by Mr Anthony Neilson for the illustrious Theatre Royal, Plymouth this year of Our Lord, 1881
By: Anthony Neilson
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Published: 2009
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Number of pages: 68
Description: A bizarre series of sketches inspired by Victorian travelling shows, 'Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness' is a curious miscellany of tricks, jokes and melancholy. In 1881, the famed and enigmatic impresario Mr Edward Gant presented his renowned travelling show for the final time: a spectacle of grotesquery, tastelessness, black comedy, mystery and magic realism presided over by an opiate-addicted actor. Neilson has reconstructed this intriguing and fantastic historical event, offering a strange and beautiful exploration of sadness and mortality and probing the nature of theatre and spectacle. With a cast that includes a girl whose face sprouts pearls and a teddy bear desperate for an imaginary cup of tea, it is a theatrical piece combining the melodrama, extravagance and painful loneliness that characterised a Victorian freak show. It was first performed in 2002 at The Theatre Royal, Plymouth.