Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs

Production Notes

Not much is known about Helen’s appearance at the Sunderland – the only female in a five-person-play – except for the anecdote that has been often told:

Before Stratford, one of the directors at the Youth Theatre asked me to play “Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs”, a typical Angry Young Man play of the sixties. As with all those plays, it was a boy’s fantasy and the girl’s role was sexist crap. However, it was a professional engagement, with a wage attached. We played it for one week at the Empire, Sunderland. The vast, echoing mausoleum of an auditorium seated around two thousand. We attracted around two hundred. The seats of the theatre were like cinema seats; they flipped noisily up if anyone stood to leave. Many people took that option, especially when I had to deliver the line “Will you shaft me?” By the end of the play there were maybe a hundred and thirty-four left in the audience. (Helen Mirren: My Life in Words and Pictures)