Anger over Epstein and Andrew fuels festival of 'female anarchy'

Dozens of leading female writers are uniting to stage an ambitious theatrical event in a financial office to express their "seismic rage" over the Epstein files and honour his victims.

Titled All the Rage, the rapidly assembled large-scale performance will be staged in 15 rooms of a former insurance building in the City of London from Thursday.

"It's a huge office that was all about men and money, and we've peopled it with a kind of female anarchy, which feels really exciting," said writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who set up the project.

Lucy Kirkwood, Penelope Skinner, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti are also among more than 70 UK-based playwrights taking part.

They have each written short scripts and texts that will be used in performances and installations.

They are inspired by the revelations from the files relating to US former financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the themes of power, abuse and exploitation.

Lenkiewicz has written a poem in response to the memoir by Virginia Giuffre, who detailed her abuse by Epstein and accused the then-Prince Andrew.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor reached a financial settlement with Giuffre in 2022 and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Lenkiewicz said she was "so angry" about what she saw as the lack of time given to victims and survivors in media coverage of the Epstein files.

"Every day was full of the men and the money - so we thought it would be wonderful to have the female perspective on it," Lenkiewicz said.

"A lot of the language around sexual violence and rape is about shame, and we want to shift the shame, we want the guilt to be with the perpetrators," the writer added.

"A lot of it is about silencing voices, be it Weinstein's victims or Epstein's victims, and [maintaining] this institutional silence so perpetrators can keep going.

"We want to smash it, and we want women and all victims to feel like they have a voice, because to be silenced is just horrific."

Epstein and other prominent men won't be portrayed directly by actors in the show. "Those men have had enough oxygen," Lenkiewicz said.

Lenkiewicz previously wrote the 2022 film She Said about the investigation into Harvey Weinstein, and was the first female dramatist to have an original play on the main stage of the National Theatre in 2008.

For All the Rage, the writer has also penned a letter to a man from her own past, which will be performed and then shredded.

"It's like sending something into the world that you have never articulated before," she said.

"Hopefully it feels like a release and quite cathartic. It was cathartic just to write it, actually, let alone hear it or know that it's witnessed.

"A lot of this work is meant to be about sharing anger, but also something of healing."

Penelope Skinner thinks "probably every single writer" taking part has "sadly got some personal experience in their lives" that's relevant to the themes of the event.

Her contribution was sparked by a photo of Mountbatten-Windsor and an unidentified woman, which was "the thing that stuck in my head" from the Epstein files.

"The thing that activated my piece was the photograph of Prince Andrew kneeling next to what appeared to be the body of a young woman, lying on her back with her face redacted, and I wanted to write a piece exploring that," Skinner said.

"That photo is a very symbolic representation of the faceless [woman] and the powerful man, looking directly into the camera."

No context is supplied for the photos and it is unclear when and where they were taken.

BBC News has approached Mountbatten-Windsor for comment. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti agreed that it "felt that female voices were drowned out" in the Epstein files coverage.

Visitors to All the Rage will move between performances and exhibits throughout the office space, before coming together to watch a final collective performance.

"What Rebecca and the team have done is to offer a creative space that enables and centres a female perspective," Bhatti said.

For her scene, Bhatti has taken inspiration from a scene in classic Bollywood film Pakeezah, in which a courtesan dances on broken glass.

All the Rage will be "like a cauldron of creativity, because I think we've had enough", the writer said.

"I'm expecting a night that will be about rage, but will also be about power and connection and solidarity and love and freedom.

"This night is an invitation to share this experience, which I expect to be a thrilling window into the creativity and imaginative responses to this horror by 80 female writers."

All the Rage is at Theatre Deli, Leadenhall Street, London, from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 June.

Original photos by Emma Lynch.