The Girlfriend Experience
Young Vic
Helen
Globe
Who exploits prostitutes? Men, of course. And women, too. In particular those feminist politicians, always at panic stations, always posing as moral redeemers, who promote the myth that there’s only one type of hooker in this country — the crackhead Albanian rape-slave living in an airing cupboard — and that her only hope of rescue is a No. 10 policy statement. The truth is more complex and less alarming. Alecky Blythe’s verbatim piece gives us the authentic low-down on the skin trade. ‘Verbatim’ means Blythe spent weeks recording live testimony from a group of aging prostitutes which she then shaped into a dramatic text. The script is performed by actors listening to the words relayed to them on earpieces. It sounds contrived but the result is lucid and amazingly naturalistic. You’re there, you’re in the whorehouse, with the whores. And you warm instantly to these big-hearted ladies who run their rented Bournemouth flat as a co-operative. No pimps, no drugs, just the usual work-place atmosphere, laughter and bitching, camaraderie and jealousy.
In the lead roles, Beatie Edney and Debbie Chazen are brilliantly credible, and they roam the poky boudoir gamely exposing great acreages of tasty flesh. Mundane details are best. When all the talent is busy a secret signal is placed on the doorstep advising would-be punters to return in 30 minutes. The signal is a garden gnome. It’s amazing to discover that these heroic old boilers haven’t built up a resistance to predatory men, haven’t inured themselves to the shoddy male habits of seduction and deceit. But no, these motherly tarts giggle and blush like teenagers whenever a man offers so much as a bunch of roses or a dinner date. ‘I’ve got a boyfriend,’ they simper, even though they know that the courting rites are a form of credit to be redeemed later for sex.
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