The Gut Girls

So it was with a fair amount of trepidation and unease that I entered The Draycott Memorial Hall, to watch The Mendip Players production of ‘The Gut Girls’. Having been invited to see a play where a bunch of women are up to their elbows, twelve or thirteen hours a day, preparing meat for London’s butcher shops, against the backdrop of Victorian London, whilst a local well-to-do woman tries to teach them to be Christian!  Having recently seen some very light productions, this sounded like it could be a hard slog. I’m glad to say that, in the main, I was proved completely wrong.

On entering the Memorial Hall, a really nice venue, I discovered that the normal lines of seats that you would expect for a drama production were not there, instead the audience were greeted with approx. twenty tables, all with four chairs round them. It is always nice to see a group do something different and the use of tables as well as chairs, makes for a much calmer; more formal affair. It also does a good job of making an auditorium look and feel full, even if it isn’t. This isn’t a criticism, I genuinely believe this is a clever idea and, as an actor, I would much prefer to look out over eighty people around tables than lines of seating that are half full. 

The programme for the production was very minimal, compared to what I normally see, but I liked it  It was colourful, had a few photos and was still full of lots of information.  However, it wasn’t without its flaws and spelling the venue wrong and missing out an actor from the programme is one thing, but having the wrong performance dates was probably a mistake too far. Also, for reference, if you wish to ever enter Noda’s Programme Competition, we do like to see at least one reference to Noda somewhere in the programme. Having the Noda logo, somewhere, would have at least been a start.

As the play started, and I tried to get comfy in my seat, the curtains opened to reveal a pretty simple stage. Basically, a box set where one side was made to look like a posh home, the other side was made to look like a hall and the middle was left open, although for the opening of the play the middle was the abattoir or ‘Gutting Rooms’. There was also some extra “staging” in front of the main stage, on the floor and it was clear that at some point during the play this would be used as well. The set was very effective and made good use of the small Memorial Hall stage. Several items of the staging were also very cleverly used, a good example of this was the “Gutting Table” which when turned around became a normal table and a bar. I am always in awe of clubs that use village halls as they often have to think of different ways to make the most out of lack of space and room, and ideas like the “Gutting Table” and sharing scenery, are good ways to do just that. Unfortunately, despite a large amount of staging and the sharing of set pieces, scene changes seemed to take rather a long time, especially when it looked like little had been changed. Occasionally, some scene changes were made whilst the action was on, but these tended to be a little noisy and distracted from the performers on the stage. An example of this was the removal of the bookcase.

There were several props in this production, a lot of them really helped to highlight the Victorian setting. A personal favourite of mine had to be the “guts” at the beginning of the play, they looked suitably gruesome and bloody and really helped set the scene so well. Also the mangle was very authentic and looked really good in the production though a little loud when being used.

As previously mentioned, productions performed in halls have several hurdles to overcome, sometimes the sound and lighting can be very hard to manage due to the restrictions on space and due to acoustics within halls. However, the sound for this production was excellent, considering there were no head mics and only three hanging mics, the sound was just superb. I have seen many productions recently where the sound quality is very hit and miss and this includes productions who have spent lots of money hiring in expensive sound engineers, however, these guys could certainly learn a thing or two from your technical team, Roger Reeson; Rob Elliott; Jean Reeson and Steve Dennett. The lighting for this production was also very good and really made the use of the minimal amount of lights that you had. However, there was one incident where the lights went to black out a little early, leaving the actors on the stage, in blackness, saying their last few lines. Also, although this is more of a creative note than technical, personally I wouldn’t have had the end scene play out with spots on either side of the stage, I understand that they were there to highlight the two different social structures but the changing from spot to spot, so many times, just slowed the play down a little and dulled the end impact slightly.

The costumes for the production were very good and seemed to fit in with the Victorian feel well, the gut girl’s outrageous hats were particularly good as was Lady Helena’s first outfit, although the second one was more impressive it seemed a bit too posh for daily use and also looked a little too large. I liked that you tried to give the girls aprons a suitably bloody and messy look, but they looked a little more like Primary School Art Aprons than Bloodied-up Abattoir Aprons, a few of the wigs also looked a little bit odd, but overall the costumes and accessories were good.

Although there were a few missed lines, the cast were all very good and everyone seemed to be cast perfectly. Ash Jones and Miles Whittle, as Jim and Len (the only two men in the whole play who were not painted as bastards) played their parts well and, although they only had one scene together, showed some nice chemistry. Nathan Tabberer, did a competent job of playing Mad Jacko, but a misunderstanding of Musical Hall style comedy meant that his performance just didn’t seem to fit quite right and I feel that Mad Jacko came across a little too aggressive. However, bearing that in mind, Musical Hall died out 30-40 years before Nathan was born, so perhaps we can forgive him this little oversight. Keith Batten played a suitably nervous and creepy Harry and managed to hold himself well against the strong female characters. However, the star male performers had to be Jeff Astle as Arthur and Tim Cook as Lord Edwin. Both of these guys put in very strong performances and managed to give so much to their portryals. Jeff played Arthur with a quiet dignity that clearly hid some deeper emotions, plus he had an amazing moustache, while Tim played Edwin with a lot of humour that also hid a much darker side. Tim’s portrayal was incredibly funny and his looks; voice and mannerisms were a definite highlight of the production. It was really interesting to see the change in his character when he, attempted, to attack Maggie and his mannerisms and character changed completely. I really liked it when both men got their comeuppance and the audience cheered, as if they were in a pantomime. This is always lovely to see and shows that the audience are really invested in the play and the characters.

However, this play is much more focussed on the female characters than the males and with this in mind you have to take your (Victorian Bowler) hat off to all the ladies in the cast. First of all, special mention must go to Bea Cook and Marie Millard who were fantastic in their small cameos as Eady and Edna and brought so much to their few minutes of stage time. Nataylia Wills and Gillian Salt played their parts of the servants Emily and Nora well. These two characters seemingly had little to do but both actresses managed to make sure they didn’t just disappear into the background. Both Tricia Lumley and Lynda Whittle, did admirable jobs of playing the upper class Lady Helena and Priscilla. Lynda particularly, did a sterling job and managed to show many layers in her performance of Priscilla, hinting at the abuse she was receiving from Arthur, through her timid performance. However, the real stars here were The Gut Girls and it was the scenes where all the girls were together that were the best scenes in the play. In fact, the play opens on Annie’s first day meeting the other girls in the abattoir. This scene was so funny and set up the play well, I could have easily watched the interaction between these girls all night, unfortunately, this was the only real time that all the girls were together and the humour and pace of the show really dipped when they were separated from each other. Luckily, there were still several scenes when the majority of the girls were together, and it was interesting that it was these scenes, and the scenes with Lord Tartaden that really lifted the show. As mentioned, the play starts with Annie’s first day, Annie was played amazingly well by Hennasey Millard. Annie started the play full of shyness, embarrassment and confusion over the bawdiness of the other girls and as the play progressed, she became a much more confident assertive girl. Hennasey’s performance covered her character’s evolution well and was a real joy to watch. Fliss Cobley played the part of Kate, one of the younger girls who is hoping to plan a life with Jim. Fliss’ performance was also good, but it was sometimes hard to know if Kate was shy and embarrassed about her friends or if she enjoyed the bawdiness. However, regardless of Kate’s feelings, Fliss managed to add a lot of comedy into her role and we really felt for her and Jim and their relationship that clearly wasn’t going to be able to develop as they wished, it is also worth mentioning that although surrounded by several strong characters, Kate never really slipped into the background and this was down to a strong performance from Fliss. This then leads us to the three final “girls” Ellen, played by Karen Salt; Polly, played by Nettie Wills and Maggie, played by Allie White. These final three “girls” were just an absolute joy to watch and easily the best performers on the night. Each one seemed to just embody their characters and were all so natural in their roles. As mentioned, the best scenes in the play were when the girls were together and especially these three girls who all had a lovely chemistry with each other and really bounced off each other well.

Overall, this was an enjoyable play to watch and, I don’t mind admitting a bit of a surprise considering the play content. Sylvie Barham should be pleased with herself, especially in the casting stakes which was just superb throughout, most notably Polly; Ellen and Maggie. You could argue that there are enough references to the young ages of the “girls” in the script to make a ridicule of the idea of casting older actresses (I’m not being rude, I promise), but I think it worked well having the three main “girls” older than the others and gave them even more of a mother hen feel than is written, which actually benefited the play. As an extra note, it may have been nice to have some background actors, in the scene in The Musical Hall, but definitely at Lady Helena’s club, where it is referenced that she only found work for those girls that attended each week, which turned out to be 250 girls. Congratulations.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.