“There’s nothing wrong with being a girl… except if you’re not,” says Isobel Thom’s Joan of Arc. It’s a blazing statement to those who condemned the Globe’s I, Joan – in which the French martyr is non-binary – as misogynistic. In Charlie Josephine’s script, Joan (who uses they/them pronouns) makes nuanced, incredibly complex points about gender and the way the so-called “trans debate” has pitted trans and cis women against each other. (Men, we’re told, are the real enemy anyway.) But let’s get it clear: this is no gender studies lecture, but a funny and fierce work of theatre. Think the words “non-binary Joan of Arc” pissed off Daily Mail readers? They ain’t seen nothing yet.
Joan greets us and welcomes us into 15th century France, but not the one we know. King-to-be Charles (a joyous Jolyon Coy) is a petulant, foot-stamping, tennis white-wearing brat, bolstered by advisors who agree with everything he says. Only the low-born Thomas (Adam Gillan) offers him sound advice. Then they hear word that a girl (as they believe Joan to be) is amassing followers by claiming to have been sent from God to lead France in the war against England.
