Marlene hosts a dinner party in a London restaurant to celebrate her promotion to managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. Her guests are five women from the past: Isabella Bird (1831- 1904) - the adventurous traveller; Lady Nijo (b1258) - the mediaeval courtesan who became a Buddhist nun and travelled on foot through Japan; Dull Gret, who as Dulle Griet in a Bruegel painting, led a crowd of women on a charge through hell; Pope Joan - the transvestite early female pope and last but not least Patient Griselda, an obedient wife out of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As the evening continues we are involved with the stories of all five women and the impending crisis in Marlene's own life. A classic of contemporary theatre, Churchill's play is seen as a landmark for a new generation of playwrights. It was premiered by the Royal Court in 1982. "Top Girls has a combination of directness and complexity which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert. You can smell life, and at the same time feel locked in an argument with an agile and passionate mind." (John Peter, Sunday Times)

The play is both hilarious and heart breaking as it takes us through the changing lives of Robert and Hilary Travers a couple of ex academics in retirement as they embark on a study of marriage in old age.

The creative team responsible for a recent Broadway flop (in which three chorus girls were murdered by the mysterious ‘Stage Door Slasher’) assemble for a backer’s audition at an isolated country mansion. The house is replete with sliding wall panels, secret passageways, nazi spies, a bumbling police inspector and a German maid who is apparently four different people - all of which figure in the intrigue and comic mayhem which follows when the ‘Slasher’ reappears, striking again - and again, and again. While the composer, lyricist, actors and director prepare their performance and a blizzard rages outside cutting off any possible retreat, bodies start dropping in plain sight and suspicion mounts with the demise of each new victim until the ‘Slasher’ is finally unmasked - much to the relief of the audience, who will need a rest following the non-stop barrage of laughter.