| The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Alan Hopgood |
| Date premiered | June 17, 1964 |
| Place premiered | Russell St Theatre, Melbourne |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | satirical comedy |
The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women is a 1964 Australian stage play by Alan Hopgood. It followed on the success of And the Big Men Fly . [1] [2]
Cleaning ladies decide to sabotage a business after their boss sacks them. They form a legion and use information from their employers' rubbish bins to help them play the stock market. They ruin several dishonest companies, create wealth, and donate all their profits to charity. A millionaire’s son who has helped the ladies upsets them by using their files to arrange his marriage. They end the Legion of Cleaning Women and return to cleaning.
The Bulletin, reviewing a 1964 production, wrote "Hopgood develops his idea with considerable inventiveness, and the evening passes pleasantly. There are some clever visual effects as the women’s basement cubbyhole is transformed into the nerve-centre of a vast secret enterprise, complete with electronic gadgets, illuminated map, and so on; and plenty of local and topical jokes are worked in along the way" [3] The same magazine, reviewing a 1967 production, declared "It is not a wildly funny play, and it is certainly an awkward one technically,having four self-contained acting areas used in rapid, varying succession." [4]
The Age called it "a nice satirical fairy story" and said "Hoppgood is an inventive story teller" although "at times he is a little slapdash". [5]