Shakespeare’s Sisters review: brilliantly unexpected songs and prose give voice to the voiceless

Brighton festival
Combining words devised for Shakespeare’s female characters with music from composers old and new this was a Bardic treat with teeth

The two groups behind me who (it emerged at the interval) were all expecting a greatest hits concert by 90s pop duo Shakespears Sister, might have been startled by what they got instead: a Shakespeare-themed song recital. But you can hardly move for lovers and their lasses hey-nonny-no-ing their way across the UK’s concert halls these days, and it takes something extra to set one apart.

Sophie Bevan and pianist Christopher Glynn found it by combining Shakespeare with speeches from actor Harriet Walter’s 2024 book She Speaks! Walter’s wry, often acerbic, occasionally dagger-wielding verse fills in the gaps where women – whether witches, wives, nurses or ingenues – should speak, but don’t. Paired with a brilliantly unexpected selection of Shakespeare songs, many by female composers, it made for more than a simply pretty recital.