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Where are the scissor sisters now, and did they really deserve what they got?

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Scissor Sisters ran as part of Riverside Studios Bitesize Festival, on the 16th and 18th of July. Directed by Steph Allison and written by Amy Connery, this play is based on a murder committed in 2005 by two sisters in Dublin. 

Irish born Jackie Pulford plays Linda Mulhall (Lyn in the play) and Amy Connery is cast as Kayleigh, based on the younger sister, Charlotte Mulhall. 

The set is simple – just a cheap looking table and two plastic chairs. It’s clever and focused, ensuring the attention of the audience is solely centred on the two sisters meeting for the first time since their conviction – Lyn released after 12 years, and Kayleigh still inside, serving a life sentence.

The 55 minute long performance is one continuous dialogue, there’s very little movement, nothing to distract from the conversation unfolding, and the story it reveals. Connery’s writing is excellent. The script stays heartbreakingly true to the facts, while unveiling the devastation and suffering that lies behind the heavily reported details of this case.

Pulford and Connery evoke with dexterity and nuance the inevitable resentment, tenderness, loyalty, nostalgia, guilt and blame, while lies, self-denial  and selective memory abound. While Lyn is the elder, she conveys a sense of fragility, anxiety and weakness, and the audience is left wondering, as Kayleigh is, who does it serve most for Lyn to play the victim? Who is abdicating responsibility for the crime? And has justice been served if Kayleigh is still inside, always will be, and Lyn is free?

At times there’s a lingering over morbid details in a manner which is more suggestive of the Netflix true crime approach, and detracts from what makes this piece of theatre uniquely worth seeing – its emotional depth, and the important questions it raises about the inherent misogyny of the press, the public and of course, the justice system.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent portrayal of the lives of two women who are still living with and suffering from the consequences of their actions decades ago, and lets us see them with fresh eyes. I left feeling that the crime committed, while perhaps not just, was utterly comprehensible, and thinking of several murders committed by men that deserve the label ‘notorious’ more than the Mulhall sisters’ actions. 

The tension between Lyn and Kayleigh is a back and forth of whose fault it was, who did exactly what, but perhaps the real guilty party is a justice system that repeatedly fails women and girls, and allowed a serial rapist and convict to roam freely, and to attack again. The Mulhall sisters were not protected by the police, the courts or their mother – does it make them inherently evil that they took their safety into their own hands?

If this gets another run, it’s a must see. Keep your eyes peeled.

Lyn – Jackie Pulford

Kayleigh – Amy Connery

Director: Steph Allison

Writer: Amy Connery