“I went to the Donmar the other night and saw My Night with Reg, which is brilliant, but it’s eleven male characters and not one woman walks on stage – and that’s so the norm.”
Mel Heslop is stating what is increasingly coming to be acknowledged as an unhealthy fact about theatre today: the continuing and significant imbalance between the genders. For instance, between 2003 and 2013 thirty one plays written by women were staged at the National Theatre out of a total of 206 productions. Similarly, just four female writers have ever won the Olivier Award for Best Play. Yet, according to the Society of London Theatres, women comprised sixty eight per cent of theatre audiences in 2010.
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