THE extraordinary true story of identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons is brought to life at Lighthouse in Poole today and tomorrow.
Inspired by Marjorie Wallace’s best-selling book The Silent Twins, Polly Teale and Linda Brogan’s poignant play Speechless is an astonishing portrayal of the secret world of a very special but ultimately destructive alliance between two sisters.
June and Jennifer’s parents were post-war immigrants to the UK from Barbados and the twins were brought up on an RAF base in Wales, where their father and mother struggled to fit in with a close-knit English military community.
At the age of three, the girls made a pact to only communicate with each other and, to a certain extent, their sister. As they descended into their strange realm, their ‘us against the world’ mindset deepened and their behaviour became increasingly bizarre.
After a series of criminal acts, which included setting fire to three empty buildings, they were sent to Broadmoor high security mental hospital and it was here that they came to the attention of Wallace, who was an investigative reporter with the Sunday Times. She read their diaries – the writing so small she needed a magnifying glass to decipher it – and was haunted by their extraordinary life.
“They had the most intense love-hate relationship and really couldn’t live with or without each other,” Marjorie said. “They were like twin stars going round each other’s gravitational field. It was frightening.”
But their diaries showed them as great thinkers and communicators and were packed with beautifully described, often wry, views of the world.
“When I first met them they literally had to be carried into the room and they stayed very still with their eyes lowered,” said Marjorie. “When I said I had read their writings, June lifted her eyes and asked what I liked. They then gave me their diaries and I turned them into my book.”
The relationship between the two women was so intense that they felt they could not both survive their release from Broadmoor. Within hours of leaving the hospital Jennifer was taken ill and died. Her inquest showed she had died of inflammation of the heart, but no poison was found in her body and her death remains a mystery.
June still lives in Wales and is a recluse.
Performances at Lighthouse are at 7.30pm, with a 2.30pm matinee on the Wednesday. Call 0844 406 8666 for full details.
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