The Kransky Sisters - Three Bags Full

Published Friday 10 October 2008 at 11:15 by Nuala Calvi

With their high-necked blouses and buttoned-down, fifties personas, repressed spinster trio The Kransky Sisters are the antithesis of the sequined world of musical comedy.

Purportedly in the UK to retrieve the stuffed remains of their late grandfather’s house pets, the Addams Family-esque Aussies present an evening of songs picked up en route on the wireless of their Morris Major, along with stories of their baffled encounters with modern life.

Mourn, the eldest sister, plays lead narrator, her every word echoed by Eve, in thrall to her sibling. The gormless half-sister Dawn is meanwhile reduced to silence by their simmering hostility over an episode when their mother eloped with their uncle in a stolen funeral hearse - the less said about that, the better.

Using pots, pans, toilet brushes, a tuba and a saw, the sisters give their twisted versions of hits such as Tragedy and Staying Alive - the latter, delivered by these ghoulish figures, rendered unsettlingly sinister.

Much of the comedy lies in the incongruity between their strangely chirpy musical arrangements - sometimes even accompanied by tambourine tossing routines - and deadpan delivery, aided by the addition of an unwitting audience member who is recruited as a fourth Kransky sister and dressed to match in a black skirt and wig.

If it’s a riotous night of cabaret you’re after, the Kranskys’ tales of confusing sex toys for cleaning products probably won’t raise the pulse. But their utterly convincing characterisations and strangely beautiful harmonies make them a far more original proposition.