19:00, Tue 22nd – Sat 26th November 2005 at Corpus Playroom
Michaelmas Week 7

Marlene hosts a dinner part in a London restaurant to celebrate her promotion to managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. Her guests are five women from the past: Isabella Bird - the adventurous traveller; Lady Nijo - the mediaeval courtesan who became a Buddhist nun and travelled on foot through Japan; Dull Gret, who as Dulle Griet in a Bruegel painting, led a crowd of women on a charge through hell; Pope Joan - the ninth-century female pope; and Patient Griselda, the obedient wife from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As the evening unfolds we become intimately involved with the stories of these five women and begin to see the impending crisis in Marlene's own life. A classic piece of twentieth century theatre, Churchill's play explores the idea of what it is to be a woman – and a successful one at that – in a man’s world.