Climax: Angie, who suspects that her Aunt Marlene, not her mother Joyce, is her true birth mother, travels to London to visit Marlene at the Top Girls employment agency. She watches as Marlene confronts the angry wife of a man at the agency who believes her husband should have received Marlene’s most recent promotion.

What a brave lady she is for giving us an insight into the daily life of drugs, the power people have over others the violence they dish out and the strength of Danielle to overcome her ordeal and write a very strong story. Dorney, Kate; Gray, Frances (14 February 2013). "1980-1989". Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays. Great Britain: Methuen Drama. pp.116–117. ISBN 9781408164808. In 2012, critic Benedict Nightingale included Top Girls in his list of Great Moments in the Theatre, writing that many of Churchill's plays "seize and startle, asking key questions in dramatically daring ways, but none more than that modern classic, Top Girls. [24]"The action then switches to Marlene's office where Angie arrives, having taken the bus from Joyce's house in the country. She is shy and awkward and her presence is clearly an unwelcome surprise to Marlene, who nevertheless offers to let Angie stay at her place overnight. They are interrupted by Mrs. Kidd, the wife of Howard, who was passed up for promotion in favor of Marlene. Mrs. Kidd tells Marlene how much the job means to her husband, how devastated he is, and questions whether she should be doing a 'man's job'. It becomes clear that she is asking Marlene to step down and let her husband have the job instead, which Marlene firmly declines to do. She tries to clear Mrs. Kidd out of her office, but Mrs. Kidd only becomes more insistent until Marlene finally asks her to "please piss off". The play opens in a restaurant, where Marlene is waiting for some friends to arrive. She is throwing a dinner party to celebrate her promotion at the employment agency where she works. As the women arrive and start the meal, they begin to talk about their lives and what they did. Each of her guests is a historical, fictional or mythical woman who faced adversity and suffered bitterly to attain her goals. Lady Nijo recalls how she came to meet the ex-Emperor of Japan, and her encounter with him. While the rest of the women understand the encounter as rape, she explains that she saw it as her destiny: the purpose for which she was brought up. Within the context of Pope Joan's narrative, the women discuss religion. At this point the waitress, who punctuates the scene with interruptions, has already brought the starter and is preparing to serve the main courses. All the women except Marlene discuss their dead lovers. They also recall the children that they bore and subsequently lost. Nijo's baby was of royal blood, so he couldn't be seen with her. Pope Joan was stoned to death when it was discovered that she had given birth and was therefore female and committing heresy. Griselda was told that her two children had been killed, in a cruel test of her loyalty to her husband. After dessert, the women sit drinking brandy, unconsciously imitating their male counterparts. The trues life story of Danielle Marin, a school kid in London who at the age of 12 is groomed and becomes involved in drug dealing and "gangs".

The protagonist of the play, Marlene is a high-ranking official at the Top Girls Employment Agency in London, and, at the start of the action, has just received an important promotion. To celebrate, she convenes… This is the true-life account of Danielle Marin, "a smart grammar school student turned county line drug dealer." Hard-hitting, addictive, and thought-provoking, I 100% agree with the publishers when they said: "This book should be on the National Curriculum." It definitely needs to be studied by the younger generation, as Danielle's brutal honesty leaves nothing to the imagination. Despite the dark side to this tale, there is also a lighter side, where Danielle spreads the message that no matter what mistakes are made, there is always a way out, and there can be sunshine after the rain.

The play was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London on 28 August 1982. It was directed by Max Stafford-Clark, the Royal Court's artistic director, who premiered several of Churchill's plays. The cast was Selina Cadell, Lindsay Duncan, Deborah Findlay, Carole Hayman, Lesley Manville, Gwen Taylor and Lou Wakefield. [5]

Danielle is a tough grammar school Londoner, hanging around the streets with her mates, but not getting into too much bother, like most teenagers. Act I of Top Girls takes place in a hip London restaurant where Marlene is gathering five other women to celebrate her promotion to managing director of Top Girls, the employment agency where she works. This scene is surreal, because Marlene's 5 dinner guests are female figures from different historical eras: Isabella Bird; a 19th century writer and traveler, Lady Nijo; a 13th century courtesan and later, Buddhist nun, Dull Gret; the subject of a Brueghel painting who led an army of women into hell to fight the devils, Pope Joan; a 9th century woman who disguised herself as a man and became Pope, and Patient Griselda; the obedient wife from The Clerk's Tale in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. These women are bound together by their struggles against patriarchy and oppression - and Marlene relates to each of them differently. Betrayed by the police after a brutal gang rape, she finds protection under the wing of organised criminals and falls in love with the local ‘top boy’. However, her allegiances bring terror to her doorstep when gun-toting rivals target her flat – and the authorities answer by taking away her baby. Billington, Michael (28 March 2016). "My bruising love affair with the Royal Court". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 August 2021. There is also commentary on Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, who celebrated personal achievement and believed in free-market capitalism ( Thatcherism). Marlene, the tough career woman, is portrayed as soulless, exploiting other women and suppressing her own caring side in the cause of success. The play argues against the style of feminism that simply turns women into new patriarchs and argues for a feminism in which caring for the weak and downtrodden is more prominent. The play questions whether it is possible for women in society to combine a successful career with a thriving family life.

When she recounts her tale at dinner with the other women it appears in an accurate but slightly shortened form. Griselda says that she understands her husband's need for complete obedience, but it would have been nicer if he had not done what he did. She spends much of her time defending her husband's actions against Lady Nijo's accusations concerning his character.