The sister act with a heart of gold
LOUiSe deaRmaN and aura Pitt-Pulford like each ther. Which is lucky, given hat they portray conjoined wins daisy and Violet Hilton ho, for a time, were headliners n the american-Vaudeville heatre circuit. Originally born in Brighton, he sisters went to the U.S. as oungsters and spent the rest f their lives on show, one way r another, as freaks. dearman and Pitt-Pulford tar in the Bill Russell and enry Krieger musical Side how, which has had two runs n Broadway but never been erformed in this country — ntil now. it starts previews tonight at he Southwark Playhouse, prouced by Paul Taylor-mills and irected by Hannah chissick. i watched rehearsals in a hall n deptford, South-east lonon, and realised, having seen oth Broadway productions, hat it actually works better as n intimate piece. ‘it makes ense for it to be a strippedack, dirtier, grittier version,’ aid dearman, a former star of ondon’s Wicked. and she and Pitt-Pulford, ven without make-up and igs (one’s blonde, the other’s redhead), are mesmerising as the twins. They were joined together when i saw them and Pitt-Pulford observed that they have some big laughs when they’re not on stage.
dearman said Side Show asks the audience: what’s normal?
Pitt-Pulford added that folks have always had a ‘warped need’ to see people who aren’t like themselves.
and director chissick agreed: ‘We’re driven by voyeurism.’ She suggested the modern-day equivalents of the freak show are all around us: on TV, social media and in print.
But she suggested that Side Show, though ostensibly about ‘freaks’, is not really that at all. at its heart, it is ‘a story of two girls who happen to have this freak of birth’. ‘it’s an intimate story about why we — all of us — are so interested in people who are different.’
The show also features Haydn Oakley, dominic Hodson, Jay marsh, christopher Howell, david muscat, lala Barlow and agnes Pure.