Why is that that so many women, perhaps most, are engulfed by fear when they wait at a bus stop, dance at a nightclub or walk through a park? Why is that that so many women, perhaps most, are conditioned to be neat and polite? And why is it that so many violent and sexual crimes – no perhaps about it, definitely most verging on all – are committed by men on women?

Three of the many questions raised by Poor Michelle’s daring theatrical investigation into the unsolved enigma that is Bible John, an unidentified serial killer who is said to have taken the lives of three women after nights out at the Barrowland Ballroom at the height of the swinging sixties.

Using the dramatic construct of four office workers who assuage their fears by developing a fascination bordering on obsession for all things graphic – from cannibalism and child murderers to serial killers and mutilation – writer Caitlin McEwan (with support from the Charlie Hartill Theatre Reserve) and her fellow cast members Ella McLeod, Laurie Ogden and Lauren Santana combine forces to find the missing piece of the jigsaw in order to solve the five-decades-long case. And in so doing, understand and hopefully assuage their collective “aura of fear”.

From the off, the pace is disconcertingly fast and furious, and the content dense to point of deafening, as the four keyboard warriors follow the forensic investigations of fictional American journalist Carrie La Rue. Newspaper cuttings are pinned to a board, a list of suspects are recorded in ink and the famous portrait (the first authorised release of a composite drawing in Scotland) is replicated by a willing volunteer. Though a cheap jibe at the “tax-evading” Gary Barlow falls flat.

The second half is much more inventive and engaging as the close-knit ensemble perform a variety of verbatim and fictional monologues from both real and imagined people to a backdrop of video footage and choreographed dance routines. The culmination of which leads to a passionate debate about gender-based violence. “These are women’s lives,” we are reminded. “They’re not a fucking sudoku.” Indeed. As are the daughters and sisters, nieces and girlfriends who, to this day, continue to live their life in fear.

Peter Callaghan
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