If the Burton Taylor is the perfect venue for intimate shows, then Cornish company Scary Little Girls is the perfect pair to take full advantage of the cosy stage, which welcomes us scattered with sparkling saris and laid out with tasty snacks (not baked by me - baked by Mr M and Mr S, Rebecca confesses).
One woman show Rebecca Morden, ably assisted by her ukulele Mrs Lovely, introduces a night of readings, biographical snippets and scurrilous gossip about the radical women of literature, ancient and modern, from Julian of Norwich to Sophie Hannah. On the way, she takes in roads less travelled like F. Tennyson Jesse, of Moonraker fame, alongside old favourites like Aphra Behn and Kate Bush.
Storysmiths: Radical Women, is served like a meal, in three delicious courses. After an amuse-bouche of Wollstonecraft, we are served starters of misbehaving girls, firebrands and investigative journalists, and treated to the story of Florence Nightingale, known in the ranks not as the Lady of the Lamp but the Lady with the Hammer after an incident involving a locked cabinet of medicines intended for the officers!
The main course is a delicious party mix of smiling ruthless pirates and firework socialites drowning in the fug of their ennui, each railing, taking and talking out of turn. After more biscuits and a sad, sweet song break we move into witch country to consider the loss of loved ones, the gaining of property and the "heaps" of people who need murdering. Then it's out with the ukulele for a final high note, with Christina Rosetti's exquisite The Birthday.
On the way out we are handed a reading list, so none of the evening is lost, and we can walk out into the night reading the menu of the delights we have sampled tonight.