The Killing of Sister George

June, a rather butch actress, lives with Alice, a demure little thing, and plays Sister George, a virtuous nurse in a radio series called Applehurst. After six years, the BBC is about to kill Sister George off and June is most distressed, besides being abusive to Alice. Although the play is a farce, the relationship between June and Alice has elements of homophobia. But, writing an obituary in The Independent, Adam Benedick suggests the play is about power, and about the absurdity of entertainment consumers who react to fictional characters as if they were neighbors, and maybe a dig at mediocre actors who achieve wild success on the basis of one role. Perhaps. Certainly the mousy, demure character has the upper hand at the end of the show more play. I've always considered farce mean-spirited, and this is no exception. show less

The title would mislead many who do not understand that it is about the firing of a radio personality by having her character die on the program. The story is overlain with the main plot, but there is also a subplot about the relationship between the actor and her "flatmate" or girlfriend. The relationship seems a bit strained in the euphemisms, but this is a play written and produced in a different time, when the presence of a same-sex partner could spell serious trouble for a career and for acceptance in society as a whole. It was bold for its time, but seems rather tame now, other than the standard presentation of one of the partners as an abusive bully and the other a submissive, frightened child-woman that needs to be rescued. The show more homophobia is from a different time; the ins and outs of the world of "branding" and marketing of the series could be snatched right out of today's star-studded magazines. Worth a look. show less

I read this when I was around 14 and more unlikely subject matter for a teenage cowboy I can hardly imagine. I was dumbfounded by even the imaginary existence of a lesbian couple sundered by the dominant one's demotion on British radio drama. Was I reading this book the right side up?

I don't care what the cover says. This is NOT a comedy, even the blackest variety.

The life of a soap opera actress begins to unravel as she fears her character will be written out of the series. A no-holds-barred aging lesbian actress who's already teetering on the edge when she gets word that her character in a TV soap opera is to be killed off takes out her frustrations on her childlike lover and a production head, the two of whom eventually become intimate on their own. The script-reading sequence had me howling with laughter, and protagnist's non-stop barrage of put-downs, insults, wisecracks and other hateful remarks are acidly hilarious. There are a surprisingly realistic sex scene near the end and a gut-wrenching concluding scene .