A NIGHT DOWN THE MOLLY HOUSE
Welcome to Mother Jacks!
To all ye who cometh here to this fine queer locale wishin' to take a load off of thy burd'nd hearts, welcome! Help thyselves. to a warm, wee pint a' ale and enjoyeth the festivities within Mother Jacks Molly House..
Come on down to Triangle Deptfords secret 1725 gay bar…Grab your dress or breeches and head off to Mother Jacks Molly House for an evening of gay, raucous abandon with live performances by artists E.M Parry performing their amazing durational piece Pricklings, Arkem Mark Walton performing their tip top Molly act, a sing a long and also helping you to make a traditional molly house doll plus singing opera and more are Medusa Has Been and if that wasn’t enough we have an actual harpsichord and violin in the bar as we listen to traditional music played by The Chamomile Mollies, Rudolf Balàzs and Matthew Brown you can even learn a few country dances!
Molly houses were locations where, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, mollies, or queer men, met for companionship and sex. They could be in pubs and taverns, inns or coffee houses. There are descriptions from eighteenth-century sources of elaborate outfits, mock marriages in an area of the Molly House known as The Chapel and even mock births in which a molly would deliver a wooden doll that was then baptised. (you can make a doll with Arkem Mark Walton if you come down a bit early)
Molly houses were a space where gay histories and trans histories intermingle. It was common for men at the molly house to wear women's clothes and to speak and act in typically 'feminine' ways. Most had alternative names such as Plump Nelly, Primrose Mary, Aunt May, Susan Guzzle, Aunt England, and the Duchess of Camomile.
While an established molly-house such as Mother Clap’s Molly House served as many as forty people on any given night and provided a back room for more illicit activities, a molly-house could be as informal as someone’s private room in an otherwise “straight” public house.
So, imagine it's 1725 and you are off to Mother Jacks Molly House for an evening of gay abandon with music, performances, dances and raucous country dance tunes, we will even teach you some dance moves from ther 1700's!
We will see you there!