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Intersectional Identities
Charabanc Theatre  
Bel McFerran 
In extracts from this essay I shed light on the Charabanc Theatre Company  
exploring how their identity as a Northern Irish and female-led group was both  
beneficial and detrimental to the level of visibility they received. This essay was 
originally a response to the question: “Focusing in depth on one play and  
playwright/company and a maximum of two of the themes below, consider how the 
reception of political plays may impact visibility, canon formation, and absence in 
theatre history”. 
Charabanc Theatre Company is a name unfamiliar to many non-Irish theatre  
students. Their first play, Lay Up Your Ends, may not have any significance to the 
average theatre scholar but that shouldn’t result in their practice being unworthy of 
study. Charabanc built their company and practice from the ground up: five out-
of-work actresses, devising and performing the living history of their community to 
create paid work and tell untold stories. The script of Lay Up Your Ends sat  
untouched in Linen Hall Library, Belfast, for 25 years until it was formally published 
and released into the academic world. However, exclusion from canon formation 
and marginalisation in archives doesn’t represent the outstanding impact  
Charabanc had on the communities they interacted with. The company used the 
language of Belfast mill-workers to not only bring their history to life but tell a wider 
story of the importance of representation. Through comparing audience feedback 
to formal recognition, this essay will postulate how the social status of Charabanc 
in archives and legacies was impacted by its reception. Specifically examining 
themes of class and gender will guide analysis in how Charabanc attempted to 
manufacture how they were received in the mainstream and the subsequent  
reaction from the media. 
To introduce the company, Charabanc Theatre was formed in 1983 by five  
phenomenal women: Sarah [Marie] Jones, Eleanor Methven, Carol Scanlan 
[Moore], Brenda Winter and Maureen Macauley. All five women were out-of-work, 
working-class, Northern Irish actresses frustrated with the lack of opportunities 
and employment. They were based in the dire theatrical scene of Belfast - a city 
lacking not only female playwrights, directors and lead roles (which weren’t  
mothers or sisters) but security as they competed against imported English actors. 
Their practice was born out of indignation; there were no opportunities available so 
the group strived to create them themselves. Ironically, their first point of call was a 
man, Martin Lynch, who they asked to write a play about the experiences of  

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