Feminists Don't Wear Pink and Other Lies by Scarlett Curtis

Author:Scarlett Curtis [Curtis, Scarlett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

“NOW IMAGINE THE SKETCH SHOWS WE DID LOSE BECAUSE WE NEVER GOT TO HEAR THE GENIUS COMIC VOICES OF THEIR BLACK LESBIAN COUNTERPARTS. THAT’S CERTAINLY WHAT HAPPENED.”

Some of those women are elderly now; their potential Ministry of Silly Walks, undeveloped and unnurtured, will die with them. Some have taken their Holy Grail to the grave.

We don’t know the name of the black lesbian John Cleese and we never will, but she walked down Carnaby Street in the Summer of Love doing funny voices, throwing away witty one-liners and snapping back her most edgy observations about Harold Wilson and Woodstock. Her friends were doubled over listening to her. Let’s call her Clara. She probably worked in an office, typing for the men we remember. Perhaps she worked at the BBC, and every now and again suggested a brilliant punchline which was hoovered up and used without credit. She probably loved ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ and knew all the words. We will never know all the lyrics to her songs though. It was simply impossible for her to share them. It’s not easy now. But with an enormous amount of work, courage, mould-breaking and luck, it’s possible. Today, I drink to Clara, Susan, Annie and Aruna and their lost collective comedy Library of Alexandria, full of sketches and stand-up about their political views, their cultural heritage, their dating life, their window on racism, sexism and classism, and their attitude to the planet we are spinning on. Let’s take a moment to miss their comedy wonders as much as we would the Spam sketch if it went missing tomorrow. We hope we won’t lose any more from this day forward.

*Bonnelame, Natasha. Black British theatre:

1950–1979, the British Library (2017)

www.bl.uk/​20th-century-literature/​articles/​black-british-theatre-1950-1979.

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