The audience response, a definite murmur of disapproval, to Marlene’s dismissal of Angie as a “packer in Tesco” brings home just how relevant the play is today, with opportunities for women, particularly working class young women, possibly being even more reduced since 1982. Amanda Hadingue (Louise) and Charlotte Lucas (Win).
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Liv Hill, making her professional theatre debut here, captures perfectly the teenage angst, yearning, stroppiness and vulnerability of Angie, and she and Lucy Black as Joyce both capture the Suffolk accent perfectly. Here though, she really made me consider how much did Marlene really broke through the glass ceiling, what restrictions did she meet? Her child, Angie, has been brought up by her sister, Joyce, and the huge class divide in our society is still profoundly relevant. Katherine Kingsley is excellent as Marlene, a Thatcher fan, ambitious, leaving her humble roots far behind.
I still find it casts a shadow over the rest of the play, and the scene set in the Top Girls agency is a little over long, but this production confirms the play very much as a play for today. I’ve always felt that this extraordinary first act is an island, and when we return to the mainland, fixed very much in early 1980s reality, I long to return and find out more about the historical women. Liv Hill (Angie) and Ashna Rabheru (Kit) in Top Girls. In particular, Ashley McGuire is a superb Dull Gret, monosyllabic until her speech describing her battle in Hell, and Amanda Lawrence as Pope Joan, who was torn to pieces by an angry crowd when she gave birth during a parade, her secret tragically revealed. As the wine and brandy flow, each woman reveals the losses and sacrifices they made, and Lyndsey Turner’s beautifully acted production opens superbly with his act that lays the foundations for the whole play. She has brought together Isabella Bird, a 19 th century explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist, Lady Nijo, Japanese concubine to the Emperor, Dull Gret, famed as the subject of a painting by Bruegal, Pope Joan, who, according to legend, reigned as Pope for a few years during the middle ages, and Patient Griselda, a character from medieval and renaissance Europe, noted for her enduring patience and obedience. Whoever is on your fantasy dinner party list, it won’t be any of Marlene’s choices. Marlene is hosting a dinner party to celebrate her promotion at Top Girls employment agency. First staged in 1982, Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls is one of those plays, with its incredible first act standing as a supreme example of writing that is intelligent, audacious and original, an inspiration to any writer.
There are few plays that truly become “landmark” texts and productions. Last Updated on 4th April 2019 Paul T Davies reviews Caryl Churchill’s play Top Girls now playing at the National Theatre.
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