Theatre review: The Terrible Infants

THE Cerberus Sisters, those "sexy Siamese triplets", made their first and only appearance on the Fringe stage last week, but there's little doubt they will soon be back, and likely to become a bit of an institution.

Bound at the hip, in Edwardian dresses, they salaciously twirl and twitter, and ably play cello, flute, and violin while they strip to their suspenders in the one of the strangest trios you are likely to encounter. Sweetly tripping across the stage, it turns out they have a taste for serial murder, trilling: "Hell have no fury like three women scorned".

When the cast of The Vaudevillains first paraded on to the stage in the Palm Court of the Pleasance Dome on Monday, it would have been easy for a newcomer to take them for just another late-night burlesque or variety show. But the "mystifying magician", The Great Mephisto or Ray the Blade, are actors, rather than acts; the knife-thrower has a terrible aim and the ventriloquist takes his schizophrenia out on his puppet. The Vaudevillains is a murder mystery musical, the latest creation of the Les Enfants Terribles theatre company.

Les Enfants Terribles are celebrating their tenth anniversary at this year's Fringe, with a triple bill that includes two of their most successful shows, Ernest And The Pale Moon and the twisted tales of The Terrible Infants, both at the Pleasance Grand theatre this week, as well as last week's one-off staging of their newest show. The Vaudevillains, where the cast of a music hall show are all murder suspects, is the company's eye-catching first foray into full-blown musical theatre. There are shades of Stephen Sondheim - or Chicago - in the plot, after the nightmarish boss of the Empire Theatre is found dead.

Oliver Lansley wrote and also stars in the company's shows, in close collaboration with composer, musician and performer, Tomas Gisby, and actor and director James Seagar. Gisby and Seagar have worked with Lansley since the first days of Les Enfants Terribles

The Terrible Infants, based on short stories by Lansley and Sam Wyer, blends music, puppetry and performance, and delivers twisted tales from the nursery. Reviewers revelled in a show "where all the cruel children have been let loose and are crying for attention". They included Manky Mingus, who smells so bad even the flies leave him alone, Tumb, who turns his ferocious appetite on his mother, or the chronically forgettable Thingummyboy.

Les Enfants Terribles had its genesis in West, by Steven Berkoff, with whom Lansley had appeared in another successful Berkoff play, Greek. (Berkoff's reputation as an enfant terrible of the British stage gave the company its name.) "We took out the white faces and the classic Berkoff style and set it in a dingy night club and played it almost naturalistically," recalls Lansley.

With a cast 16 people, including a jazz band and dancers, it was a big undertaking, staged at The Space arts centre in The Isle of Dogs. With about two weeks' notice, they were then asked to fill a slot at the Assembly Rooms.

Among the shows that followed, Immaculate, performed at the Gilded Balloon in 2005, was a milestone. "Immaculate was about a young woman who woke up to find herself mysteriously pregnant despite not having sex for 11 months," says Lansley.

To return to their Edinburgh shows, Ernest And The Pale Moon. playing twice in a late night slot, is about a man who spends his days obsessively watching a beautiful young woman in an apartment opposite; Rachel Dawson, the Cerberus Triplets' cellist, plays opposite Lansley.

"Ernest is our exploration of classic horror fiction," he says. "My inspirations were Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, a mixture between film references and literature. I love Poe short stories and how bold they are."

By contrast, The Terrible Infants, with narration by Judi Dench, is "our version of the Brothers Grimm tales or Roald Dahl". Comparisons abound when it comes to Les Enfants' work, perhaps because they capture the dark styles of the times. Dahl is often mentioned, as is Tim Burton and Edward Gorey.

The Vaudevillains marks the company's progression from plays, though relying heavily on live music, to using its actors as singers as well as musicians. Its first outing was at the Latitude festival. That show, and the Edinburgh performance were followed by costumed parties intended to create an "immersive" audience encounter with the work. It is likely to go on tour, and seems almost certain to get a welcome re-appearance at the Fringe.

"The songs help in a lot of ways to drive forward the story, but in other ways its more of a challenge," says Lansley. "We wanted essentially to score the whole thing, along the lines of Sondheim, almost in the style of opera. We thought if we were going to do it we should go the whole way."

The Terrible Infants is at the Pleasance Courtyard, tomorrow until 30 August, at 2pm. Ernest And The Pale Moon is at the Pleasance Courtyard, 25 and 26 August, at 11.15pm.

This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, 22 August, 2010