Pages

Showing posts with label Poppy Allen-Quarmby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poppy Allen-Quarmby. Show all posts

Tuesday, 22 August 2023

Theatre review: Makeshifts and Realities

The Finborough's latest rediscovery season next takes us back around 110 years, for a triple bill of short, proto-feminist plays that take a steely, pragmatic look at young women of a certain comfortable, upper-middle class, and how their seemingly carefree lives are left up in the air when the money runs out - and they've not been allowed a Plan B. The first two come from writer Gertrude Robins, and run together so smoothly you'd be forgiven for thinking - as some of the audience did at the interval - that they were a single piece. They do tell a single story: In 1908's Makeshifts, sisters Caroline (Philippa Quinn) and Dolly (Poppy Allen-Quarmby) are caring for an invalid mother and have had to take in a lodger to help pay the rent. Both talk a big game of being independent: Teaching assistant Dolly says she doesn't think she'll ever get married, while Caroline is tentatively wondering if the suffragettes might have a point.