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# PREVIEW: Brighton Festival: Stella by Neil Bartlett
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/preview-brighton-festival-stella-by-neil-bartlett/
- Published: 2016-05-24T13:31:39.000Z
- Updated: 2016-05-24T13:31:39.000Z
- Description: A theatrical encounter with a truly remarkable person, Stella is a new show inspired by the strange life and lonely death of Ernest Boulton – one half of the now-infamous Victorian cross-dressing duo Fanny and Stella.
- Author: Contributor
- Tags: Arts, In The South, News, Previews, Theatre, Brighton Festival, Neil Bartlett, Theatre Royal

## World Premiere: co-commissioned by Brighton Festival

[![WEB.600](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/web-600-56.jpg)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/gscene-com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/web-600-56.jpg)

**A theatrical encounter** with a truly remarkable person, *Stella* is a new show inspired by the strange life and lonely death of Ernest Boulton – one half of the now-infamous Victorian cross-dressing duo Fanny and Stella.

Intimate and emotional, scandalous and glamorous, *Stella* uses two performers, an empty stage and a haunting real-life story to ask what it might take to truly be yourself.

Neil Bartlett, one of Britain’s most individual theatre-makers, makes a welcome return to Brighton Festival following his much-lauded staging of *Britten: The Canticles* with Ian Bostridge in 2013.

### *Neil Bartlett reminds us that anything is possible in the theatre….* The Guardian

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**Event:** Stella – written & directed by **Neil Bartlett**

**Where:** Theatre Royal, New Road, Brighton

**When:** Friday 27 & Saturday 28 May

**Time:** 8pm

**Cost:** £10 – £17.50

**To book tickets online, [click here:](http://brightonfestival.org/search/?search=stella&ref=scenemag.co.uk)**

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Performed by 

****Richard Cant**

, 

****Oscar Batterham**

and 

****David Carr**

Stage design **Rae Smith**  
Costumes **Johanna Coe**  
Lighting **Rick Fisher**  
Sound **Chris Shutt**  
Music **Nicolas Bloomfield**  
Vocal Coach **Rebecca Root**

Age 14+

**Duration:** 75 minutes approx.

**Stella** is a co-commission by LIFT, Brighton Festival and Holland Festival