Unfinished Histories

Eileen Pollock was born in Belfast and studied languages at Queen’s University, Belfast. After working briefly as a translator she became an ASM at the Bush Theatre and went on to join the political theatre collective Belt and Braces. Frustrated at the lack of roles for women, she left to co-found the women's company Bloomers and later Camouflage, for which she wrote a number of plays. She went on to work extensively with companies including Field Day, Charabanc and Dubbeljoint in Ireland and with many other touring and repertory companies in Great Britain. She continues to work as an actor and writer.

Extracts from the interview:

Belt and Braces, Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist

‘In it there’s only one woman – she comes in in the second act –she’s  the journalist from, L’Unita, the communist paper in Italy – Maria Felleti – and … there were all these guys, you see, all fantastic fellows and that and great script and everything but they all expected me because I was only woman involved to be their feminist conscience: ‘I’m surprised you let that go, Polly, what he just said’ to the point where I threw down whatever I was holding and said ‘Why is there only one bloody woman’s part  in this play?’ Which is now in the script!…’

Debating women’s roles in theatre 

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Audio Transcript

Bloomers 3 Women in Crime

Video Transcript
Detailed Topics List of those covered in the interview
See Viewing Interviews for details of where to view the whole interview
 

Bibliography

Plays by  Eileen Pollock:
Mackers: the Real Story a Backstage Spoof
Bloomers 1 (1979)
Bloomers 2  (1980)
Bloomers 3: Women in Crime (1981)
Not So Green as It’s Cabbage
The Spit and Polish Girly Show (1980)
Lusty Albert’s Timely Passion (Camouflage,1984) (All unpublished)

Of relevance:
Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, adapted Gavin Richards (Pluto, 1980)