Jude Alderson’s Topics List taken from her interview with Susan Croft, March 2007, recorded by Arlan Harris.
Video and audio extracts edited by Jessica Higgs.
Background
Mother’s interest in theatre, seeing Behan’s The Quare Fellow, age10
Physical theatre, working with Stephen Rumbelow, Steven Berkoff
Cabot – Clowning company with her first husband, touring US
Teresa D’ Abreu joins their honeymoon
JA writes song ‘Independent Girls’, start of Sadistas
Early life
Socialist parents, politically very active
Growing up in Hounslow
Fiery Welsh / Lithuanian mother, uncle a painter
First performance experiences and training
Flying Viennas on tour in US
Studying music at Chiswick Poly
Musical influences
Meeting Berkoff through Teresa D’Abreu (TD)
Berkoff’s Miss Julie
Two terms drama training at Central School [of Speech and Drama]
Sadista Sisters
First Sadistas event at Hard Rock Café, 1973
Relationship to Berkoff, admiration but wanted woman-centred work
Early success of Sadistas
Involvement of Jacky Taylor, Linda Marlowe
Shows at King’s Head, Ronnie Scott’s, working men’s clubs, Edinburgh Festival
Performing when pregnant
Conflict with music industry
Touring Germany, success in Berlin
Teresa D’Abreu described, leaves company (died 1995)
Relationship of company to women’s movement and theatre scene
Berlin cabaret tradition
Individual shows:
Red Door Without a Bolt
Duchess
Madonna in Slag City (with Paulette Randall)
Cinderella
Cabaret show (with Pauline Melville, Jean Hart, Kate Phelps)
Easy Prey (at Roundhouse with Cunning Stunts)
Out to Lunch, King’s Head
First Sadistas sketch (with Liz Vine)
Later shows (plays by JA)
Reaping Paradise
The Virgin’s Revenge (with Karen Parker, Claire Benedict)
Rachel and the Roarettes (TV, produced)
Medea (written while in Paris)
Unproduced shows:
Dirty Business (on Greenham)
Pollard (on sexual deviance and love)
Gangsters of the Heart (Gothic melodrama)
Assessment of Sadista Sisters as seen from now
Relationship with Women’s Movement
Company working process: Easy Prey (with Marilyn van Rennen, Marilyn Taylor), also Tusse Silberg mentioned
Difficulties of combing motherhood with work
Influence of Sadistas on her daughter Lily, now a painter
Amazonia 2001
Influence of her daughter’s studies of dance and visual practice
Medea
Entartete Musik, inspired by political cabaret in Weimar Berlin
JA’s current work
Discussion of photos, press material and posters including Red Door, Virgin’s Revenge, Madonna in Slag City at Oval House