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Revolver

4 stars 

 

The sixties may swing in Emily Woof’s new solo play, but while the doors of perception are opened, women are treated as sexual playthings in the name of so called liberation. 

 

Plus ca change for Jane, a woman clearing out her dead mother’s things while recovering from the collapse of her marriage. A job in TV on a documentary about the women of the sixties, however, looks like a big break. As Jane looks into her mum’s history as a teenage Beatles fanatic, beyond the records and love letters to John Lennon, a more troubling past is revealed. Enter Valerie Solanis, whose attempt to blow Andy Warhol out of the New York underground has an effect on both women. 

 

Hamish McColl’s Shared Experience production uses vintage news footage and a rousing fab four soundtrack to illustrate a tale of three women down the decades and the institutional and personal abuse they are forced to accept. 

 

Woof throws herself into each role with an initial kooky charm as Jane before hitting the dressing up box as her mother and looking almost unrecognisable as Solanis. The litany of male power laid bare shows off the dark side of the sixties in all its corrupted glamour. 

 

Pleasance Beneath until 25 August, 2.20pm


The List, August 2025

 

ends

 

 

 

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