MUSIC HALL MONSTER: THE INSATIABLE MR. FRED BARNES Opens Tonight At Wilton's Music Hall

Olivier-award winning theatre-maker Christopher Green brings his brand-new show Music Hall Monster: The Insatiable Mr Fred Barnes to Wilton's Music Hall in a world premiere.

Fred Barnes was a famous music hall singer. He fell spectacularly from grace, brought down by a shockingly modern range of addictions: sex, shopping, alcohol, and a need for celebrity. At the pinnacle of his fame in the 1920s he was fabulously wealthy and sported the height of extravagant fashion with a marmoset on his shoulder. By the mid-1930s he was singing for pennies in Southend pubs with a chicken on his shoulder.

His life was one of gothic horror, total extremes, and rather lovely songs; in today's language we might refer to this 'wavyhaired, blue-eyed Adonis' queer, gender fluid, an addict, a predator or we might just fall at his feet and call him a star. Christopher Green takes to the stage as Fred Barnes, fresh from taking his immersive entertainment about pornography, Prurience, to the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

The dramatic tale of a music hall star with fabulous wealth and one spectacular fall from grace; recently featured as a Radio 4 drama, Fred Barnes is an extreme and flawed character who people just can't help feeling empathy for.

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