Sistershow Revisited: Feminism in Bristol, 1973–75

By D-M Withers

Sistershow Revisited uses the antics of a Bristol-based theatre group to tell the history of feminism in Bristol 1973–75.

Based on the Heritage Lottery Funded exhibition of the same name, it contains colour photographs, archival material, original articles and commentary.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HammerOn Press
• Release date: Jul 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781910849224

Book preview

First published in 2011 by HammerOn Press

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© Deborah M. Withers

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of HammerOn Press.

All reasonable attempts have been made to trace the copyright owners for the material used in this book.

Designed by Jan Martin Illustration, Bristol, www.janmartin.co.uk

Typeset in Optima by Jan Martin Illustration.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

epub ISBN 978-1-9108492-2-4

Contents

The Beginning of the Project

Sour Faced Feminists by Jane Mornement

Sistershow by Helen Taylor

Sistershow: My Immortality by Alison Rook

Sistershow

History of Bristol Feminism 1969-1974

Social and Political History of 1970s

Feminist and Alternative Theatre in the Early 1970s

The First Sistershow (Bower Ashton)

Miss Women’s Liberation 1973

Challenging Stereotypes of the Humour-less Feminist

Jackie Thrupp (1941-1991)

Pat VT West (1938-2008)

My friend Pat by Ros Beauhill

Enough by Tessa Cole

Domesticity and Gendered work

Gay Women’s Group

The National Women’s Liberation Conference, Bristol

Humour and Disruption

Bristol Women’s Centre

Women’s House Project

Music and Sistershow

Sistershow Bedminster and Class Politics

Punk theatre

Sistershow Edinburgh

Sistershow: The Woman Machine

Conflicts in Sistershow

Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ Tape Slide

Contraception, the Pill and the Women’s Abortion and Contraception Campaign

Improvising Sistershow

Family Allowances Campaign

Wages for Housework

Working Women’s Charter

The Impact of Sistershow on People’s Lives

Where are they now?

Endnotes

Acknowledgements

Sistershow Revisited

The beginning of the project*

I’ve often been asked how I found out about Sistershow. I suppose it found me. It leapt, in fact, off the page of oral history summaries that were conducted by the Feminist Archive South (FAS) in 2000/1. I was reading Pat VT West’s story in the old archive at Trinity Road Library back in 2007, and her tale of an anarchic, feminist cabaret with an ‘anything goes’ attitude demanded my attention. It strongly resonated with the type of cultural feminist and queer activism I was doing at the time.

I was delighted. Were there really feminists in the 1970s doing such things? Hadn’t we been told by universities and the media since the 1980s that the successes of ‘Second Wave’ feminism boiled down to unsophisticated theory and miserable women bartering for equality with men, which they hadn’t, in fact, achieved?¹ I had never believed this limited story, but here was the evidence, screaming at me from the page. Creativity, imagination, disruption, gender bending... I knew straight away that this was one of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM)’s best kept secrets.

I asked Jane, the volunteer archivist at the FAS, if she had a contact for Pat. Pat has been unwell, she said, adding Cancer, as she gave me Pat’s postal address. Undeterred, I wrote to Pat asking her to perform at an event I was organising. A few weeks later I had a reply. I opened the letter to find Pat’s elegant, artistic handwriting, those broad strokes curling seductively on the page. But the news was not good. Pat was indeed unwell and could not accept my invitation. She seemed very pleased I had got in touch, though, and offered her support: Remember, outrageous but considered actions help boost morale as well as to change things by making an impact!² The underlying mischief of her letter spirited me along.

In August 2008, I moved to Bristol. When I had settled, I thought I would seek out Pat and ask her about Sistershow. But it was too late. Pat had died a few months earlier. I felt a disappointment that has never left me throughout the whole time I have been researching Sistershow, although recently I have begun to think that if Pat were alive, she may have interfered so the exhibition would reflect her side of the story! But maybe this is unfair. That disappointment led me to contact other women who were involved in the show, first Helen Taylor and then Alison Rook.

I visited Alison in Canterbury after Christmas 2008. My mother was nervous about me going. What if she locks you in the cupboard! she said. I assured her it would be fine. I stayed with Alison and her cats for two days, and she shared her memories of the group and her life. I would also meet Jill Robin, another Sistershow member, who had conveniently migrated to Kent around the same time as Alison. Before I left, Alison handed me the Sistershow archive that she had created. And she had kept everything. From the scrappiest of notes to the Sistershow songbook, decorously illustrated with handwritten chords above the lyrics. I thought Alison’s archive was the perfect starting point for an exhibition, and I kept the idea in the back of my mind until there was an opportunity to make it happen.

The idea for the project evolved. Sistershow could be used to help tell the story of Bristol feminism from 1973 to 1975, and the exhibition developed along this theme. But why those years in particular, when Bristol