The Roaring Girl

This Jacobean city comedy is a curiosity in that it presents a

real-life character, the notorious cross-dresser Moll Frith, who

probably was among the first audiences of 'her' play before she was

taken up for public misconduct. Middleton and Dekker's 'roaring girl'

may outrage her society with her pipe, bluster and swagger, but she

turns out to be the moral centre of the play. Her code of honour leads

her to call the bluff on rogues and conspicuous consumers, to thrash a

hypocritical gallant in a duel, and to act as go-between for the young

lovers thwarted by parental tyranny. This wry dramatisation of female

deviancy exposing male ineffectuality is as much to the point today as

it was in King James's England. An appendix helps the modern reader to

appreciate the canting terms used by the low-life characters.