![]() The original production featured a cast of seven, six of whom played Marlene's guests and all the other characters. "Part of the problem with this revival is its scale. Top Girls is an argument for compassion and a sharp look at social inequality, demanding a place at the table for women of all backgrounds. "Crucially, Churchill's playfulness still comes across, and so does her anger. Later scenes aren't consistently involving, though Marlene's viciously competitive workplace and the poverty from which she's escaped are nicely observed, as are her awkward relationships with her estranged sister Joyce and immature niece Angie. It's cryptic without being disturbing and never quite catches the rhythms of Churchill's overlapping dialogue, feeling stilted more often than dynamic. "Lyndsey Turner's lavish production could make more of the dreamlike surrealism of this occasion. Liv Hill as Angie, Charlotte Lucas as Win, Katherine Kingsley as Marlene It's Top Girls, given the production it always deserved." The sweep from epic opening to intimate end is poignant and awesome, and there is something deeply impressive about seeing row upon row of women take their bows at the end. "Turner's care for the text shines through, and if there's a raison d'être for this production – other than Top Girls being generally awesome – it's clearly the budget. Maybe that's one reason it doesn't get revived that often. And rightly so, really: the vision is so specific and finely honed that you'd be an idiot to monkey with it. There is much less sense of a director – and designer – imposing herself on the work here. ![]() "Last time Turner brought a Churchill play to the NT it was with a startlingly massive take on the more obscure Light Shining in Buckinghamshire. "The sudden shifts of tone and style are disorientating, and there are distinct longueurs, but this production reminds us why the first and final scenes are among the best ever written for the modern stage." ![]() The scene is strong enough to stand alone, and is often performed as such: here, it's easy to see why – though, at a distance of four decades, it seems extraordinary that the group contains only one non-European woman, and no women of colour." "The cast of this revival, directed by Lyndsey Turner, is on sparkling form here, and the laughs come thick and fast – at the mostly silent Gret (Ashley McGuire), splendid in her armoured breast-plate, and at Joan, superbly played by Amanda Lawrence, as she lurches from Latin oration to drunken vomiting. "Pope Joan eating cannelloni Dull Gret raiding the bread basket Patient Griselda wondering whether to order dessert: the famous opening scene to this, Caryl Churchill's groundbreaking 1982 play, remains just as flavoursome thirty-seven years on." © Johan Persson Laura Barnett, WhatsOnStage ★★★★ ![]()
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