Linck & Mülhahn

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Bain, who is non-binary, released a video statement on Instagram addressing some of these concerns, and Hampstead offered free preview tickets to trans and queer individuals who wanted to see the show but couldn’t afford a ticket. Take, for instance, Lucy Black’s permanently aghast Mother, who is brilliantly funny in her fragility and her shock at even the slightest deviation from the norm.

Faber Members get access to live and online author events and receive regular e-newsletters with book previews, promotional offers, articles and quizzes. Thomas has crafted a drama that’s rich and witty and playful, if over-busy and uneven, told in flashback by the older Mülhahn. There’s enough zesty life in Wilson’s Mülhahn, and enough beady steel in Bain’s Linck to keep you watching. They were ultimately tried for sodomy, and this could easily be one of those depressing stories that queer history books are littered with, the ones where people dare to be different and then get crushed by conventional society’s peppermill.com shall not be deemed to endorse, recommend, approve and/or guarantee such events, or any facts, views, advice and/or information contained therein. Anastasius Linck boldly renounces skirts and embroidery in favour of living as a man, and Catharina Mulhahn's own act of bravery is to love and marry him, slipping their relationship right under the noses of their narrow-minded neighbours. From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer. For all its spirit, there's something old school embedded into the structure of Thomas's play that director Owen Horsley's furious blasts of the Sex Pistols between scenes can’t shake off. Maggie Bain and Helena Wilson are winning enough as Linck and Mülhahn, yet the characters are never more than one-dimensional.

Imaginatively reverse-engineered from a historic trial document, Ruby Thomas’s tale of a couple who pioneered gender flexibility in 18th century Prussia is, ultimately, a bit of a mess. Disclaimer: I was invited to watch ‘Linck and Mülhahn’ for free in exchange for a review of the performance as a member of the press. The play is over-packed as a narrative, however, with several underwritten characters, such as the foppish suitor for Mülhahn, and the contemporary resonances sometimes feel heavily underscored or didactic. Thomas’ play tries to encourage us to go beyond initial impressions to appreciate one’s fine, inner being, but I am only left enjoying this production in a wider, general sense, with the deeper ideas not quite shining through. Ruby Thomas' epic and playful love story, inspired by eighteenth-century court records and the extraordinary lives of a gender-pioneering couple, opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in January 2023.I linger’, she says, both women relishing all the humour in a script that's stuffed with larky historicisms like ‘zounds’ and ‘dunderhead’. Many of us, one would like to think, should be familiar with the concept of gender presentation, but there is little offered here beyond reinforcing the idea of being true to oneself – though perhaps that bears repeating in this day and age. Some may well consider it harsh that I’ve made such a comparison, rather than consider its full originality, but there are many striking parallels: the riotous music underpinning the entire story; the absurd rigidity of a traditionalist court; and even the flat out refusal at the very end to conclude with trans trauma and suffering, replacing it with an alternative, joyful ending. Though the story and ideas should be compelling, the arch tone of Owen Horsley’s production, and some panto-style acting in the supporting cast, keep us at arm’s length. But the whole thing is too gimmicky and too self-conscious in its juxtaposition of different eras to really work.