After their hugely successful, electrifying live music show ‘The Bloody Ballad’, GaggleBabble are back with their production of ‘The Forsythe Sisters’.
Inspired by Reverend Edmund Jones’ 18th century pamphlet on apparitions and spirits amongst many other influences, the show takes place in the eerily atmospheric Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay, a place which houses secrets of its own. Very much a character in its own right, the church is perfectly intimate for an evening with Maggie and Morven Forsythe, a pair of sisters who claim to be able to contact the dead.
Maggie and Morven Forsythe were fortunate enough to survive a house fire in 1987 in Penarth which took the lives of both parents. Ever since then, Maggie has been blind, but has had a psychic ability to see only one group of people: spirits. With sister Morven at her side, Maggie displays her psychic abilities, inviting spirits to join them with the help of her acoustic guitar. Hosted by the eccentric Diane who babbles consistently throughout the show, Catrin Aaron is incredibly believable and fools the audience into thinking pre show that she is merely there as warden of the church. The audience soon begin to realise that she plays a far more significant role.
The show begins with Hannahh McPake as Morven demonstrating her sister’s psychic abilities by using members of the audience and then sending psychic messages telepathically to her blind sister onstage. Maggie, wearing a pair of thick, dark glasses, recounts the story of how she was saved by her sister during the house fire, narrowly escaping the embrace of the White Angel of Death. The show, which is perfectly punctuated by McPake’s and Rivers’ harrowing harmonies, takes a turn for the worse when a man appears at the window and startles the audience and, more interestingly, Morven.
The show dips in and out of Brechtian techniques, mobile phones ringing, Diane’s incompetent brother Charlie blasting out jarring sounds on the speakers and Morven declaring that the show is over after half an hour. The audience is kept very much on their toes throughout, jumping at sudden, loud noises and swivelling to see Morven and the mysterious visitor in the gallery upstairs and outside the church. Diane, panicking at the constant unexpected disruptions, bustles about the room asking members of the audience to help with the cups.
Ultimately, the show draws to a climactic close with an explosion of paranormal activity and the entrance of the White Angel of Death accompanied by deafening electric guitar. The show is a bizarre yet fantastic mix of the surreal and the urbane which constantly keeps the audience on edge. As a consequence, the evening is genuinely tense and enthralling. ‘The Forsythe Sisters’ is another fantastic fusion of live music and theatre from the innovative and original Gaggle Babble.
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