The Ruby Dolls Are Alive review

Belinda Dillon, Arts Writer, Editor and Co-Producer of June Boom, shares a night out at Exeter Phoenix watching The Ruby Dolls Are Alive.

In April 1943, four boys searching for birds’ nests in Hagley Wood, Worcestershire, found a human skull inside a wych elm. Police searched the trunk and found a near-complete skeleton, which forensic examination determined was female. The victim had been dead for at least 18 months, and had died from suffocation.

Although the victim has remained unidentified and the case unsolved, she has captured imaginations across the decades – colloquially named ‘Bella’, she has prompted articles and films, as well as dramas, an opera and a musical. The latest piece to draw inspiration from the story is a new show from London-based cabaret troupe The Ruby Dolls.

Ruby Dolls (Jenny Grove, Susanna Giustiniani, Jessica Sedler and Rebecca Shanks) fuse storytelling and genre-busting musical mash-ups, and in this show use Bella’s tragic story to not only look at the various theories posited over the years but also explore themes of current gender-based violence, patriarchal control and social context – albeit with a feather-light touch.

The music is impressive: the Dolls belt out beautiful four-part harmonies of the cleverly blended songs – Cliff Richards’ Living Doll woven into Britney Spears’ Toxic, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black with Beyonce’s Crazy in Love – alongside straight up renditions of 16^th century folk songs and Noel Coward ditties. There’s a vintage, Andrews’ Sisters vibe about the whole evening, interspersed with musings on motherhood, waxing in your forties and moving to Devon (one of the Dolls has relocated).

All in all, it’s a gentle, enjoyable evening, despite the murderous undertow.