Lions and Hula Hoops
Not doing you job? Sacked. But at the Chest Of Wonders? Death. That's right, death.
"The absence of our beloved MC due to her educational commitments meant that we had to think outside our usual sphere, so naturally we killed her.” Okay then. Well, at least there are hula hoops involved… “Combining this with our love of neo-noir films, Frank Miller and James Elroy, we created Chest Of Wonders’ ode to film noir.”
“If we’re being honest, production meetings fuelled by whiskey and desperation [are where we] usually come up with great ideas,” says Elle Diabolic, the founding member of Chest Of Wonders.
But it hasn’t all been fun and games, “Overall the show has been a great learning curve for us. The introduction of speaking parts meant having to be scripted, and that’s new and unusual for Chest.”
The team, who describe themselves as a “combination of burlesque and circus”, have not only been struggling with this change in direction. They’ve been plagued by something of a different variety.
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“How many human lions can you fit on stage? Will the handstand canes mean our performer touches the roof? Where does one get a giant Perspex bath with lights? Will Tiki Amazon’s whips decapitate an audience member?… You know, practical stuff.”
So with this plethora of ideas all going on in one show, how do the performers sum it up? “We are transporting our audience into a Frank Miller-esque graphic novel, with all the gore and sleaze you would expect from the master himself… featuring lions, hula hooping, hand balance, a bath full of broken glass, sword swallowing, and whip cracking.”
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