Victorian Seance Reconstructed with Automata and Weird Music

Sarah and Jenny Angliss (Spacedog UK) join psychologist and Quirkology author Richard Wiseman for one of the strangest shows on the Fringe. The sisters use the haunting sounds of the female voice, bells, vintage synth and theremin to coax out any resident ghosts of Brighton’s venerable Marlborough Theatre. And when their death ballads and eerie electronica have chilled the audience to the bone, the theatre will fall into complete darkness, as Wiseman invites the audience to participate in a theatrical reconstruction of a Victorian séance.

The live performers are accompanied by some unsettling home-spun automata (created by Sarah), including a robotic bell rig and Uncanny Valerie, a moving, ‘all-seeing’ 1950s doll. The music is a shameless mix of the outfit’s favourite Weill and Brel ballads, songs from British cult classic The Wickerman, some of the band’s own numbers and electronic interpretations of 13th-century tales of necromancers.

richardwiseman