Peter Terson
Strippers

Strippers is a comedy set in the north-east of England, where the coalpits and shipyards have closed down and everyone has to find alternative ways of scraping a living. When Bernard is made redundant his wife takes up stripping. Watching exotic dancers is one thing, but his own wife...? Written in 1984, Strippers predates The Full Monty by thirteen years, and is arguably much funnier. (Cast 4+m, 5+f)

“The northeast of England has been stripped of its assets – the docks, the mines, the shipyards are gone – and all that’s left for the men is to go out for a pint, at the end of a day on social security, to watch their women strip themselves. Yet, from this bleak and obvious metaphor, Terson has created a play full of humour, concern and affection.”
~ Matthew Hoffman, The Listener

“If I had to pick a male dramatist to look sympathetically at the lives behind the leopard skin G-strings ...[Peter Terson] would be somewhere at the top of my list.”
~ Benedict Nightingale, New Statesman

“Peter Terson’s journey into the world of housewife strippers and their unemployed driver-husbands leaves you with a definite ‘there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I’ feeling that is at once both sobering and touching. Much of this is down to Terson himself, a solid playwright steeped in craft.”
~ Bonnie Greer, Time Out

“...the great strength of Strippers is that ... it both celebrates and denigrates an institutionalised British way of laughing at, or worrying about, sex.”
~ Martin Hoyle, The Financial Times

“It has compassion, wit and a good deal of worldly wisdom.”
~ Jack Tinker, The Daily Mail