Play Synopsis:
*Play Synopsis:
"The gut girls are brash, foul-mouthed, beer-swilling cockneys, mostly from desperate economic straits and dangerous pasts, but full of pride as working girls. When Lady Helena, an erudite widow from the upper class, makes it her mission to tame these girls and find them more ladylike employment -- as god-fearing waiting women -- the well-meaning dowager is as welcome as a temperance speaker at the local pub. Sarah Daniels' play is almost rudimentary in its plot: Of course Lady Helena winds up taking charge of the girls, and of course a shift in abattoir technology leaves the girls jobless, with little choice but to forsake their freedom for a life of servitude. The choices are anathema: the street, prison, marriage, or, worst, assimilation. Of the five girls in this story, each grapples with change to little avail."
*Important
"Set in the grimy slaughterhouses of Deptford in 1912, The Gut Girls places at its centre the relationship between five of the working class women who sift through offal for a living, ankle deep in blood. Whilst this may not sound like the most accessible play, it manages to be thought-provoking whilst maintaining a raucous and irreverent sense of humour. Drinking, swearing and subverting societal expectations, the Gut Girls dominate the Deptford society in which they live. Yet what will happen when the philanthropist Duchess of Albany, through Bible reading and sewing class, attempts to tame the girls, especially when circumstances conspire to force them to reject everything they know?" Review by The Tab, London
What do we know:
- Set in 1912
- Set in Deptford, Victorian London
- Follows the circumstances of 5 working class women working in a gutting shed in a slaughter house
- They have good pay - 'Earning more in a week...'
- Annie is 16
- They are full of pride
- They are looked down upon by other members of society
- But dominate the depftford Society
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