Idle Women

Idle Women is an original musical created and performed by Busy Lizzies. This tapestry of music and story heralds those who worked on the Inland Waterways in World War Two. It tells the story of four intrepid women, weaving together their challenges and triumphs, with songs of the characters’ hopes, secrets, and desires. The dilemmas the women navigate along the Grand Union Canal test their relationships and shake beliefs to the core.

It is a little-known part of our history that the quiet canals of England received a burst of wartime effort in the early 1940s. This took the form of at least forty female volunteers who left hearth and home, despite their inexperience, to ensure safe passage of essential supplies between London and Birmingham. The work was relentlessly gruelling, requiring the women to quickly adapt and learn the hard ways of life on “the cut”. However, these journeys were also rich with community and connection with nature; they offered a chance to experience an entirely different way of life.

The creatives who form Busy Lizzies were inspired by the extraordinary role these women played in exceptional circumstances. We considered the possibilities of what might occur in this unique context. This new, heart-warming musical is based in truth, and explores themes that still resonate today: friendship, purpose, gender, sexuality, and identity. It promises to leave you feeling as “warm as buttered toast” (Lisa Wolfe, Fringe Review 2023).