Airswimming
By Charlotte Jones
“Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be … 50 years for you my dear, 50 years for me”
Sent to the Asylum for daring to be different
Picture this: It’s 1924. You are a glamorous 21 year old choosing an outfit for your coming out ball at the Dorchester. A shimmering, silver, halter necked dress perhaps? All those silly, past “misdemeanors” forgotten. Until… Daddy calls the Doctor and you find yourself at St Dymphna’s Hospital for the ‘Criminally Insane’ for the next 50 years with only “unhinged, cigar smoking, monomaniac transsexual” Dora Kitson for company.
Weird Sisters Theatre Company present Airswimming, a poignant two-hander by Charlotte Jones at the Bread & Roses Pub Theatre, Clapham from 21 to 25 June 2016 at 8pm. Having enjoyed critical success, including a nomination for the Broadway Baby Bobby award, at the Brighton Fringe, the Weird Sisters are delighted to be appearing in Clapham before taking the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in August.
Set in a psychiatric hospital, Charlotte Jones’ debut play is inspired by real events. Director Stephanie Goodfellow comments: “Despite the tragedy of the women’s circumstances, this is by no means a bleak play. There is a wonderful warmth and wacky humour in the unlikely friendship between Dora, a cross-dressing self-confessed deviant, and Persephone, a young unmarried mother”.
Founded in 2014, the Guildford-based, all-female theatre company thrives on work that juxtapose dark themes with absurd humour. “There’s a poignant moment in the play when Dora threatens to trepan herself with a Moulinex hand whisk” says Stephanie, “while comical, it is underlined with great sadness, as we realise that if these women weren’t mad when they were committed, they certainly are when they leave.”
This production features original music written by composer and sound designer Nigel Dams.“Nigel has a background in rock music which is the perfect foil to the sweetness of the Doris Day songs which are featured in the show” says Stephanie. As with the music, there is a thrilling energy to this play in which two worlds collide and nothing is quite what it seems.