REVIEW: Bess: The Other Houdini at Upstairs at the Gatehouse until 12 November 2023



‚Maybe it's time to confess that our marriage was the greatest fraud of all‘ ★★ ½

Legandary escape artist Harry Houdini has died of his injuries, and his wife Bess struggles to adjust to the tragedy she spent their marriage dreading. Can she reach the man she loved with spiritualist communication that Harry himself despised, or will she have to face a future not just without her husband, but without the illusions their marriage contained?

Christine Foster has obviously done her research: Bess: The Other Houdini is crammed with information about the show couple’s lives, tricks, trials and tribulations. She has even dug out Harry’s letters to Bess, written over the course of their 30-year marriage (voiced by Jack Kristiansen). Near-death escapes, international fame, scandalous breakdowns, whispers of affairs…no one could ever accuse the Houdinis of being boring. And yet, the play throws so much detail and so many side-stories that the fascinating becomes wearying. The result is less than the sum of its parts.

Gwenneth Holmes and John-Christian Bateman, primarily playing Bess’s attending nurse and doctor, multi-role as an assortment of Bess's family, friends and acquaintances—her free-wheeling sister, her dubiously-intentioned brother-in-law, a wheelchair-bound fellow patient at the sanatorium. Too often, the new themes they throw up bloat the script and diffuse its focus.

But the show comes to life whenever Bess stops talking about magic and starts performing it. Consultant Paul Zenon and actress Pip Henderson have done a fantastic job here: The tricks range from small, deft moments—a photo switching in a frame, a vase toppling—to ones that wouldn’t be out of place on a true vaudeville stage—no spoilers, but pay attention to the orange. Particularly effective are those magical touches that illustrate Bess’s relationship to her husband: a dressmaker’s dummy with a floating handkerchief conjures Houdini up more effectively than any of the voice-overs or monologues describing him.

Henderson has been given a mountain of emotional scenes to tackle, almost all played from the luxurious yet confining sanatorium suite Bess has fled to. Here, again, those moments that draw on her stage past work best: a magic show performed with a semi-conscious sanatorium patient is darkly funny and more touching than the extended descriptions of Harry's infidelities and betrayals.

Above all, The Other Houdini made me wish for a tighter, more structured version of this story. One that cut down the naturalism and Golden Age comforts and trusted to the darker promise of the first moment of the evening: a grieving spouse, smiling bravely, bowing to the sound of applause that isn't there.

Bess: The Other Houdini at Upstairs at the Gatehouse 31 Oct – 12 Nov 2023

Box Office https://upstairsatthegatehouse.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173644929/events/428599323

Cast

Bess Houdini: Pip Henderson

Nurse Anna McDermott & May Hinson: Gwenneth Holmes

Dr. Humphrey Cousins, Bernard Ernst, Sergeant Atkinson & Theo Hardeen: John-Christian Bateman

Voice of Harry Houdini: Jack Kristiansen

Creatives

Playwright: Christine Foster

Director: James Weisz

Magic & Effects Consultant: Paul Zenon

Stage Manager: Ryan Webster

Assistant Stage Manager: Nadia Bartlett

Production Assistant: Angie Lawrence

Set & Costume Design: JC Hudley

Sound & Lighting Design: James Weisz

Lighting Technician: Darwin Hennessy

Wigs: Sean Chapman

Produced by Escape Artist Theatre Company

Reviewed by Anna Clart