The gut girls

The women of Deptford Foreign Cattle Market are up to their elbows in the guts of animals, working twelve or thirteen hours a day preparing meat for London's butcher shops. They are pilloried, and marginalised, even if they are well-paid. One local well-to-do woman decides that the Christian thing to do would be to teach these women how to act like young ladies, train them up for a life as maid-servants, 'improve' them. Of course, it does not work out that way: the women get laid off from their jobs and end up separated and even imprisoned via the wealthy houses of London society. 'The Gut Girls' contrasts the bloody mess of independence and solidarity with the apparently pristine face of upper-class life. It was premiered at the Albany Empire theatre in Deptford, London, in 1988.