19th Aug, 2025 10:00
Out of the Ordinary
19
A 'Voodoo' poster
1960, theatre poster for the controversial production of 'Authentic Haitian Voodoo' at the Westminster Theatre, London, starring Mathilda Beauvoir Haïtian singer, dancer, choreographer, composer, and mambo (vodou priestess). Beauvoir was accompanied by dancers, singers and drummers from Haiti, as well as live sheep and cockerels,
51 x 32cm
Clive Barnes' review of the production, which was published in 'The Spectator', 5 August 1960:
'The Voodoo Dancers, led by their High Priestess, Mathilda Beauvoir, are odd almost to the point, I should have thought, where the Lord Chamberlain intervenes. The show appeals partly to the beast and voyeur in us, and no fans of Aleister Crowley or James Bond should miss it. This sort of dark-grey Mass must surely be the nearest anyone in London can get to diabolism for the price of a theatre seat.
The 'entertainment' opens with a procession to a bamboo altar. Then after a certain amount of chanting in Creole. the peculiar congregation, most of them pretty girls, led by the Voodoo Priestess, start summoning up their favourite spirits or 'Ioas,' who-- dead on cue - take possession of the celebrants one after another. There is certainly an ethnological (or tourist) interest aroused here, and the show contains a few things that collectors of the bizarre must adore--a half-naked coloured girl wearing a drooping white towel and riding round the stage on a live sheep, to instance but one obvious example—but the general impression of writhing bodies, bongo drums and shrill cries very soon falls into a monotonous pattern.
Towards the end the succession of highly anatomical belly-grinds and bloodless blood sacrifices is broken when the dancers evoke the dreaded Baron Samedi, top-hatted king of the zombies. Here, however, the chance to chill our marrows is missed, partly because Mathilda Beauvoir chooses to play Samedi herself, and the sight of an attractive girl in top hat and tails and- with bare legs is a shade too reminiscent of a Ginger Rogers musical to inspire much terror.
(Note for voyeurs: friends assure me that the show has been bowdlerised since the first night. The girl with the drooping towel now wears a bikini, while the live cockerel that was ceremoniously wiped over the bodies of the celebrants has been replaced by a bunch of flowers.)'.
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Witches, Monsters, and Mysteries
Browse the selection of lots featured in the 'Witches, Monsters, and Mysteries' category in our 19 August 'Out of the Ordinary' auction.
£150 - £250
Buyer's premium: 30.00% (inclusive of VAT, where applicable)
Condition Report
minor tears to edges, fold lines, generally excellent condition for age
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Auction: Out of the Ordinary, 19th Aug, 2025
Viewing
Stansted Viewing | Auction
Viewing will be held at our Stansted Auction Rooms, Cambridge Road, Stansted Mountfitchet CM24 8GE, as follows:
Friday 15 August, 10am - 4pm
Sunday 17 August, 10am - 1pm
Monday 18 August, 10am - 4pm
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