Jackie Collins bonkbuster reborn as raunchy Swedish puppet show
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- Malmö Dockteater, an experimental Swedish puppet company, adapted Jackie Collins' debut novel 'The World Is Full of Married Men' into a show directed and puppet-designed by Erik Holmström, featuring repurposed Barbie dolls outfitted with pubic hair, giant erections and heavy surround-sound breathing.
- Puppeteers Erik Olsson and Kajsa Ericsson voice all characters and join the action on stage as lifesize versions of the dolls, while videographer Josefin Beischer relays the miniature scenes onto a large screen via roving camera.
- The script is performed in Swedish and translated into English by Lulu Raczka, with graphic sound effects punctuating sex scenes that the reviewer says make the adult content in Avenue Q 'look like The Muppet Christmas Carol.'
- Set in 1960s Hampstead's film industry, the story tackles a stagnant marriage, infidelity, and female ambition amid predatory casting-couch directors — themes Collins explored decades before Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo.
- Designer Maja Kall's miniature lightboxes feature painstaking 1960s period detail, from wallpaper to nightclub sets and hotel-room 'shag pads,' which the reviewer credits with infusing the dolls with unexpected humanity.
- The reviewer calls it 'one of the best shows of the year so far' and argues it sets a precedent for staging Collins' entire back catalogue this way, noting her literary kinship with John Updike's Rabbit, Run series on marriage.
Why it matters: The production reframes Collins — long dismissed as a mere 'bonkbuster queen' — as a serious social commentator on sexual politics, with the reviewer explicitly aligning her work with Updike's Rabbit, Run. For theatre, it pioneers a puppet-live-actor-film hybrid form; for Collins' legacy, it stakes a claim that her 1960s observations on predatory film culture remain urgently relevant today.
