Review 2017: The Elephant Girls

FESTIVAL REVIEW: The Elephant Girls runs at Outhouse until Saturday at 9pm Saturday matinee at 2.30pm.

Canadian Margo Mac Donald dons a mafia style pin strip suit to tells us the fascinating story of the East End of London’s notorious lesbian gang, which terrorised, lusted, controlled and rampaged through London for almost a century. Maggie Hale (Mac Donald) is our butch guide through the fascinating of power and criminality at a time when London’s underground pulsated with life, death and hidden passions.

Grappling and succeeding with a cockney accent, this super smooth no holds barred narrative is gripping, creepy and criminal. Directed by Mary Ellis we encounter Hale in a bar and after a few pints she begins to spill the beans on a century of secrecy that is a riveting as it is revealing. Beautifully and assuredly played, the gang undoubtedly did succeed and endure, if all its members packed a lunch like Mac Donald’s assured gender stretching performance delivered with charm and aplomb.

You will not know this story, but you will know the characters intimately by the time the story of the Elephant Girls concludes. It is a fascinating insight to a chapter of the hidden history of lesbianism condemned to the shadows and for far too long. The bright light shone by writer Mac Donald is truly illuminating – her performance memorable.

A must see. AO’B

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