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“Strap in and enjoy the ride into eternal life”
Fool’s Moon, as described on Soho Theatre’s website, is “an anarchic, genre-bending cabaret night where the mischievous come out and play. Expect extravagant costumes, elaborate props and multiple left feet that may alleviate, if only momentarily, your existential crisis.” The cabaret, hosted by Paulina Lenoir as Puella Eterna, has a different theme each night, making for a unique show each time you go. At this particular performance, the theme was “Afterlife,” with the audience being in the “Afterlife Waiting Room” and the acts being called “lost souls.” Though most acts do not keep with the theme, it is fun to see how Lenoir as Eterna keeps it going throughout the show, including some amusing bits involving ghosts and parallel universes.
The first act is Jack Boal with a drag interpretation of Margaret Thatcher, lip-syncing to "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" from The Wizard of Oz and to quotes from Thatcher, including a particularly hilarious interview in which the interviewer tried to get Thatcher to jump - you can guess how well that goes. I would have loved to see some more from Boal, but the performance was quite fun and a solid start to the show, with Thatcher as one of the lost souls, presumably escaped from Hell.
This was followed by Annabel Bashford, who performs as the Oyster Man, George, and his wife, an oyster named Margaret. It is a delightfully bizarre performance that will have you splitting your time between laughing and questioning exactly what it is that you are witnessing. Bashford is able to show off not only her vocal range as both George and Margaret but also her fantastic oyster costume!
Some of the performers have multiple bits throughout the show, including Nancy Trotter Landry, a silent mime who goes by “Suki Towdry” and begins with a short act involved clocks before officially being introduced by Eterna as a poet and doing their full act. As someone who is not the biggest fan of nonverbal clown performances, it was not my favourite act of the night, but others in the audience appeared to enjoy it based on the laughter and applause throughout. I did quite enjoy a moment in which Towdry is scared by a “ghost,” the white sheet that they had been wearing that has been placed on a microphone stand.
Another performer who takes on double duty is Charlie Wood, whose first act involves performing as a one-eyed monster (with a truly spectacular costume and some fun puppetry), lip-syncing to “Girl With One Eye” by Florence + The Machine as clips of audio about a “tar monster” are sporadically played.
In between the acts, Lenoir as Eterna interacts with the audience, with a particular focus on an audience member named Diego in the front whom she appears to have fallen in love with, constantly returning to him. A great running joke has several of the Fool’s Moon team dressed identically to Eterna, who has “ghosted” Diego and now takes the form of a ghostly bride. These ghosts dance throughout the audience for the entirety of the show and I loved seeing them imitating Eterna, typically standing behind her and echoing the endings of her sentences.
I had previously reviewed the cabaret earlier this year but was invited back to review again as my previous experience had been soured by the inability to see nearly any of the acts with poor sightlines. Unfortunately, while Fool’s Moon has improved its sightlines since its last performance at Soho Theatre, there are still major visual issues with nearly half of the performances.
I was completely unable to see Kaajel Patel’s dancing, making it impossible to review that section of the show, as it would be unfair to the performer. Others, like Nancy Trotter Landry, were visible when standing up, but for mimed sections that involved falling to the floor, it was not possible to see. Only those sitting in the front row truly get the full experience of the show. Possibly a move to Soho Theatre’s Main House would be a solution?
The highlight of the show for me was its final act, presented by Wood, who we had previously seen as the one-eyed monster. Wood gives a presentation that is, according to them, a mix of lecture and spoken word, using slides to explain Hell through Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” This leads to an incredible song theorising why one of the particular figures in the painting was painted with musical notes on his bottom, the very same notes that Wood uses for her song, “Ploughed on a Sunday.”
Fool’s Moon is a fun and fantastical cabaret, but continued technical issues make it difficult to fully immerse yourself in the world of the “Afterlife.” There is enough of a range between the different acts that everyone will find some amusement in the cabaret, whether it’s through a man and his oyster wife or a lecture/spoken word piece on going to Hell for ploughing on a Sunday.
This production of Fool’s Moon ran on 13 May. The next production will be on 1 July at Soho Theatre.
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