Idle Women

Idle Women is an original musical that tells the story of four intrepid boat women in World War 2. It weaves together their challenges and triumphs, with songs of the characters’ hopes, secrets, and desires. The dilemmas the women navigate along the Grand Union Canal test their relationships and shake beliefs to the core.

It is a little-known part of our history that the quiet canals of England received a burst of wartime effort in the early 1940s. This took the form of at least 40 female volunteers who left hearth and home, despite their inexperience, to ensure safe passage of essential supplies between London and Birmingham. The work was relentlessly gruelling, requiring the women to quickly adapt and learn the hard ways of life on “the cut”. However, these journeys were also rich with community and connection with nature; they offered a chance to experience an entirely different way of life.

Reviewers said:

○ Lisa Wolfe at Fringe Review:

■ “a musical journey as warm as buttered toast”;

■ “a show so successfully co-written, directed and produced that it chimes with one voice”;

■ “a hit musical in the making”

○ Andrew Melrose at Brighton and Hove News:

■ “This show is musical theatre at its best”;

■ “it manages to embody the collective spirit of female emancipation with every emotion it is possible to convey in one show”