h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I went to see an amateur, but excellent, performance of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ at the University of Bradford last night. I am still in a state of shock and awe. .

Wow, what a show. I can’t think of any other piece of art or entertainment I’ve seen that delivers greater emotional extremes: belly-laughing hilarity in some places, absolute horror at man’s inhumanity to woman in others.

Of course I knew about all the atrocities described in some of the monologues - rape, genital mutilation, women being burned alive or scarred with acid – but the show brings them vividly and hideously alive, and the effect was heightened for me by the fact that I knew most of the performers. Today I feel a powerful urge to be particularly nice to every woman I meet, in a pitiful attempt to redress the balance just a tiny fraction - even though, strangely enough, the show actually made me feel a bit better about myself. The horrors described in 'The Vagina Monologues' put anything bad I've ever done into stark perspective.

But when the show is funny, it’s often very, very funny. I mean, I’d heard about why some women like to sit on washing machines when the spin cycle’s going, but I never realised before why some like to stay on running machines for so long. Next time I go to the gym, I’ll go with eyes newly opened...

perhaps the d*ckheads in cars should be forced to go to it too...

glad to hear it was so good - i have wanted to go for ages but the production here was expensive at a time when i was broke - with luck someone cheaper will do it sometime soon!

The production I saw was put on by the University theatre group I belong to, and they weren't allowed to advertise it away from the campus because there's a professional touring production of the show playing nearby fairly soon. Do you have any colleges near you with drama societies?

they did several big Theatre Company productions of it a year or two ago and since then i've been keeping my ears open - even for another semi-expensive one like they were, as we could afford it now (and i would make it a priority ) but there's just been nutthin!

that's what you get when you live in a hick country i guess

Erm, why *do* they stay on the running machine for so long???

There's a monologue that deals, in part, with having orgasms in unlikely locations when alone. One of these is on the 'treadmill' (which I assume is American for running machine) in the gym!

I saw the monologues on (Danish) television with an american female stand-up comedian. In between there were sequences with women of all ages who told about their feelings and experiences.
And I had the same experience as you, Ormondroyd. I both laughed and became horrified - and was a bit more happy about myself afterwards. (I'm 51 )

It was my husband who 'summoned' me because I didn't know the program was on. And it is good to know that now he knows as well. Allthough - some of the *horrors* he had already been told by Bosnian women who came to Denmark after having been in prison camps. (He's half Italian half Yugoslav and performed for the women at a course where they should learn to tackle their own and then their kid's trauma. He was in a refugee camp when he was a kid - and they all cried for hours).

Generally speaking, there was nothing in the more harrowing monologues that I hadn't read about in newspapers or seen on TV. But seeing them performed by women I knew brought it home that this stuff *really* happens, to real people like my friends.

I believe there are different editions of the 'Monologues' around. The posters for the professional production that's coming to the Bradford Alhambra Theatre sell it as a funny, sexy show. If you went to the theatre expecting that and then saw the version I saw, I think you'd get quite a shock.

maybe there is some scope to include your potatoes in all this

Would you believe it's already been suggested? The theatre group are planning to bring back our potato puppetry show, and a Potato Monologue was suggested in the bar last night after our meeting! Great minds...