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Top Girls Opens at Trafalgar Studios
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Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls has opened at Trafalgar Studios this week. The play, first produced in the early 1980s, follows the story of a hard-nosed businesswoman named Marlene (played by former Coronation Street star Suranne Jones) who left her family behind to concentrate on her career. At a dinner party celebrating her latest promotion to Managing Director of the Top Girls Employment Agency, Marlene is joined by a number of historical guests, each of whom have overcome adversity to achieve their ambitions in life. |
They Say: Top Girls ReviewsSo where have the centuries left us? Churchill doesn't hesitate: in the gap between the go-getting haves and the left-behind have-nots of early Eighties Britain. Acts Two and Three pull us, in both location and sympathy, between Marlene's slick office, all big hair and power-dressing, and the rural home of her estranged sister Joyce (Stella Gonet), struggling with her educationally backward teenage daughter Angie (Olivia Poulet). Fine work from all seven actresses keeps our emotions on the spin and director Max Stafford-Clark offers a nuanced but fleet-footed production. **** 4 Stars Fiona Mountford - The Evening Standard (read the full review here). I’ve always loved and admired the play, but I had forgotten how ingeniously it makes its effects and arguments. And of course we see it now in even sharper relief in the march of history. “I think the 1980s are going to be stupendous!” says Marlene, and she was right, by her lights. But now look what happened. Top Girls is not so much historical pastoral as ironical satirical. ***** 5 Stars Michael Coveney - WhatsonStage (read the full review here). Caryl Churchill's play was first produced back in 1982 at the Royal Court. As here, that version was directed by Max Stafford-Clark, who should be pretty familiar now with the play and its message. And there is little to fault in either the acting or directing. Suranne Jones's Marlene is clinically cold and heartless, selfishly focused on her own ambitions and desire to 'get on' in the world of business. In contrast, Stella Gonet's impressive Joyce is a woman bedraggled and ground down by the daily pressures of life. Olivia Poulet makes a very dour and hard-drinking Dull Gret, and then makes a fairly radical transition, taking on the role of the energetic and wilful Angie. **** 4 Stars Peter Brown - London Theatre (read the full review here). A Thought-Provoking Dramatist |
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Caryl Churchill began her writing career whilst raising a family in North London in the 1960s and '70s. Her work grew from short radio and television dramas to full-length stage plays, often with a strong social message. Her best-known works include Cloud Nine, Fen, A Mouthful of Birds and Serious Money. Top Girls will play at Trafalgar Studios until Saturday 15th October 2011. |
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