00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to
00:06 be speaking to Christine Foster, who is the playwright of a fascinating sounding play
00:10 which is going to be in Eastbourne on September 29, 30 and October 1, and also coming back
00:17 October 18, 19 and 20. The play is Bess, the Other Houdini. Now Bess was Houdini's widow.
00:26 What kind of a woman was she? And we find her in this play in a real moment of crisis,
00:31 don't we? Just set the scene. Yes, Houdini's been dead for two years. Bess
00:38 has been struggling with alcohol and depression and has possibly been trying to get in touch
00:46 with Harry on the other side and get publicity for doing it. And the press finds out that
00:53 the séance probably wasn't real and Harry didn't come through. She checks herself into
00:59 a sanatorium because she is at her lowest broken point. So the play takes place with
01:06 what happens next. And the point being that she was a massive
01:11 support to Houdini throughout his years of fame, wasn't she?
01:15 Yes, Houdini would always say that he would not have been able to do what he did without
01:20 her support. Goodness. And how did they meet then? She was
01:24 a dancer, wasn't she? Yeah, when she was 16, she started dancing
01:28 in a beer hall in Coney Island. And he was sort of down the road a little bit in a vaudeville
01:35 type palace performing with his brother Theo doing the Houdini Brothers. And they were
01:40 doing card tricks and parlour magic mostly. And maybe 30 years it was a happy marriage.
01:47 On the whole it was, although we do explore that a little bit. One of the things that
01:53 happens is that she does find some letters, but not to see the play.
01:58 Absolutely. But the point is Houdini dies and we don't know really whether that was
02:03 murder or not. What does she think? Does she think her husband was murdered?
02:08 I think she's open to the possibility. She is furious with spiritualists who were trying
02:14 to curse him. And they certainly knew what theatres he was in and he gave his address
02:19 to everybody. Not like now, it would have been pretty easy to get to him if they had
02:24 wanted to stop him from telling everyone they were fakes, which is what he was doing.
02:30 Well, it sounds an intriguing play. This is the premiere, is it?
02:35 Yeah, this is the world premiere. We worked up to it last year for two weeks here in Brighton.
02:41 So we had got a good rehearsal script. And now we're in rehearsals, and I'm still twiddling
02:47 things. But basically, I think we're really solid. It's great. And the cast is great.
02:52 Henderson is playing Bess and she's wonderful. And the whole thing is only three people playing
02:58 multiple parts in a very free flowing, almost cinematic dream and hallucination type of
03:05 thing.
03:06 So with the fact it's the premiere, there must be pressure there. You need it to go
03:10 now for there to be a future for the play, presumably.
03:13 But we're so happy to be doing it in Eastbourne before we go up to London so that we can really
03:18 see the audience reaction and things. But I really do feel we're on good footing. It
03:23 feels right.
03:24 Fantastic. Well, congratulations on the piece and good luck with that premiere. Lovely to
03:28 speak to you.
03:29 Thanks so much, Phil.
03:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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