Tit Swingers

Aug 9 2024 | By Rebecca Mahar More

★★★★★ Omg they were crewmates

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33); Tue 6 – Mon 26 Aug 2024
Review by Rebecca Mahar

From the team behind Julie: the Musical comes Tit Swingers, a Punk Gig Musical – with added Pirates.

To the wild riffing of electric guitar, bass, and drums, Le Gasp! Productions tells the unapologetically queer story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read: pirate queens, hellcats, tit swingers. Oh, and Calico Jack— he’s there too.

Abey Bradbury and Sam Kearney-Edwardes. Pic: Le Gasp!

Based on the lives of historical female pirates Bonny and Read, Tit Swingers takes its title from the popular images of them from an edition of A General History of Pirates, where contemporary engravings show them with sword and pistol aloft, breasts exposed to reveal their womanhood. Whether or not this actually happened in combat remains a historical question, but has become an enduring trope.

Tit Swingers by Le Gasp!’s Sam Kearney-Edwardes and Abey Bradbury, does not merely lean into the likelihood that Bonny and Read were lovers, but dives right in, head first, describing the two women and Calico Jack as “the throbbing throuple of the sloop William”.

Kearney-Edwardes and Bradbury as Bonny and Read, rage, flirt, rejoice, and tell their stories with the Le Gasp! signature of rebellion, rock, and heart-wrenching truth. They are joined by Max Kinder as Calico Jack, providing vocal support and periodic interjections to the relentlessly-driving musical narrative, as well as percussion.

energy and intensity

All three performers are actor-musicians, with Kearney-Edwardes and Bradbury taking turns on guitar, bass, ukulele and keys throughout the show, in addition to being its writers. None of the trio let up their energy and intensity for a moment, even through Kearney-Edwardes’s mock lament for an interval.

The show is advertised as suitable for 18+ for a reason, and doesn’t shy away from language, sex, and general pirate-based raucous behaviour. They might sing that “you’d better run when the tit swingers come”, but better advice would be to run to Tit Swingers while you can.

Running time: One hour (no interval)
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance 2), 60 Pleasance EH8 9TJ (Venue 33)
Tue 6 – Mon 26 August 2024
Daily, not 7, 14, 21: 1:40pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.

Website: www.legasp.co.uk/.
Instagram: @titswingers.
Facebook: @T-I-T-S-W-I-N-G-E-R-S.
X: @GFDmusical.