Comedy

Mourne: We are the Kransky Sisters from Esk in Queensland, Australia. It’s a small town with a whole street of shops on both sides. There is a butcher, a baker and Glenda’s Fashion house where we buy our clothes. I’m Mourne, and this is my sister Eve. Our sister Dawn is a part-time trolley librarian at the Esk Hospital. She lives in the laundry at Mrs Evermore’s house over the back fence. The spare room upstairs is Eve’s and my craft room. Dawn is not of the same father as Eve and I, and hasn’t spoken since our mother left. Her father gave her the tuba.

I worked at the Peckers Pass Egg Farm to make enough money for us to eat and Eve stayed home and did the chores. After dinner, we would sit around the fireplace in our lounge room and listen to the wireless. That’s how we learn the tunes we play for our concerts, from the wireless.

Sometimes it can take half a day to hear the same song again. We have to wait for hours until we can pick up where we left off. A nightcap of porridge always helped. Eve plays the musical saw. Our father gave it to her when she was six. He cut himself building our mother an ironing board. Our mother always got us up early for the day with her rooster Damien. He was a nasty black fowl that would peck our ankles if we weren’t fast enough. She used to make us check the rabbit traps. She always sent us out when the men visitors would come.

Eve: We had to sew blinds for the windows.
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Mourne: Yes, so the sun wouldn’t come in, because she said the men had sensitive eyes to sunlight. Eve and I were made to leave school when we were in grade five and six. Dawn was sent to Tafe Toowoomba with her tuba with the money she got from her father. Eve and I picked up the music at home, listening to the wireless. We use utensils from around the house to play, like the wood saw. Eve discovered that the toilet brush had a nice sound. She likes to use it against our reed keyboard. It sounds good and keeps it clean. One day I dropped the pot we use for the stew. It was one of our father’s asbestos cookware pieces from his job as a travelling salesman. It made a nice sound, so we use that too.

Eve: Shaking the biscuit tin sounds nice. I like it when we play the tambourines in that song by Jamelia.

Mourne: Yes. We like to sing the songs we hear by AC/DC, The Bee Gees, Nana Mouskouri, and Devo too. They’re nice. When we’re not listening to the wireless in the lounge room and practising the music, we’re usually looking at the magazines.

Eve: We like the pictures of the famous people.

Mourne: Yes. They give us good ideas for our makeup, and we must wear makeup to make us pretty. Eve models her makeup on Elizabeth Taylor. I like Joan Collins. We try to get Dawn to copy the cut-out we gave her of Catherine Zeta-Jones, but she never gets it right. There are nice things in the magazines though, aren't there? Sometimes even a recipe, like Macaroni Cheese. We have that with boiled potatoes. Eve stirs the mixtures…

Eve: …while you read out the recipe.

Mourne: Yes, Eve’s not good at the reading, but she likes looking at the fashions. The short skirts the ladies wear though, are a surprise. There’s no material in them, yet they cost the same as our long ones do. We buy them at Glenda’s Fashion House in Esk. She has twin sets dating back to 1935. Our mother would never let us wear slacks. Slacks are like trousers and are for men only. We use our Morris Major 1958 to travel around to share our songs and stories. Dawn ties the instruments to the roof. At home we have a tricycle and tandem pushbike, for when we just want to go to the shops.

Eve: One day you tore your skirt in the chain and we fell off.

Mourne: Yes, Mrs Boyle said that I should have been wearing slacks. I said I'd sell the bike first!

Eve: Dawn won a prize for a bicycle ride down Esk Mountain once.

Mourne: Yes, but she won a trophy for the most spectacular jump.

Eve: She took the wrong path over a cliff with stinging nettle weeds.

Mourne: The slope was very steep. Fortunately she gained enough speed for the tricycle jump over the gorge. A trophy looks so nice on a mantle piece doesn’t it?

This close-knit family of unlikely entertainers and their oddball music have warmed many hearts after they won The Age Critics’ Choice Award and the Melbourne Airport ‘Best Newcomer’ Award at Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2004. They were awarded a Green Room Award for best cabaret ensemble, and an Australian Live Entertainment Mo Award, for best comedy group. In 2006 they returned to their hometown of Esk after having been awarded a Bank Of Scotland Herald Angel Award for excellence at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

If only you’d had the courage to visit those weird old aunts of yours years ago, you wouldn’t have had to wait until now to experience some of the joy The Kransky Sisters have to offer - a night of music and comic performance so tuned out, it’s tuned in! Well worth you visit.

The Kransky Sisters are Leicester Square Theatre, Leicester Place WC2, Mon Sept 29 to Fri Oct 10.