“Why Is John Lennon Wearing A Skirt” by Claire Dowie
Nottingham New Theatre. 

Just one of the many reasons why I love the Nottingham New Theatre is their choice of productions and the fact that I’ve remained unaware of these plays prior to seeing them at the New Theatre. This is one of those plays, and as you can tell from the title of this play, it gives no indication of what the play is about.

Dowie’s best known ‘stand-up play’ is a powerful monologue about gender expectations and stereotypes by someone who doesn’t want to be a ‘girl’, doesn’t want to wear skirts and wants to be John Lennon.

What begins as frustration at the impracticality of the compulsory school skirt – only good for showing off legs and no good for playing football – becomes an articulate and passionate argument against obligatory femininity and individualism.

Usually performed as a one woman play, NNT have cast four actors to play John - Michaela Green, Rosie Hudson, Kate Maguire and Lillian Race.

It's refreshing to see what it's like to look at life from a female point of view, and they make it fun to see what women think of men at different stages of their lives.

That said they can turn a comical moment completely on its' head to pathos and really make you think long and hard about some of the issues people, not just women, feel with self identity, gender equality and the respect we all demand, but often fail to receive.

Although written in 1996, the issues covered by Dowie are just as relevant, if not more, today, which is why this play feels so fresh.

Directed by Chloe Richardson and produced by Darcey Graham, they have presented a powerful piece of theatre which fires home a serious and thought provoking message whilst being entertaining, and plenty of sass.

i loved the lighting design (James Fox) which spotlit the individual "Johns" which made you focus on that one character, making sure that your eyes and ears were on what that actor had to say at that time. This made the speech and actor even stronger from an audience point of view. Another clever directorial decision.

The music design (Georgi Paxton) was fun and ranged from John Lennon, as you'd expect, to the Beatles, T Rex and Marc Bolan and the very cool Sampha.

Another vital piece of theatrical education for me tonight thanks to the NNT bunch.

"Why Is John Lennon Wearing A Skirt" is on at the Nottingham New Theatre until Saturday 10 March 2018