In decades of yore, a documentary such as Rebel Dykes would have snuck out in the wee small hours of the morning on Channel 4, its title presenting as either fuck-you provocation or come-hither tease, depending on personal outlook. Directors Harri Shanahan and Siân A. Williams have here assembled a brisk, engaging 90-minute primer on an entire subculture: that of the young lesbians resident in London at the turn of the 1980s, some natives, some smalltown girls drawn there because there wasn't anything like it going on at home. Some of these young women would find their way to the protest camps outside Greenham Common; there's a certain overlap with the recent doc Mothers of the Revolution. Others bent towards art, formed a band, made a racket their own way. Some were just out for a good time. From the recollections of scene survivors, we piece together an idea of disparate groups of outsiders and outcasts groping round in the darkness of Thatcher-era London, first to find their tribe, then to find something either constructive, disruptive or fun to do with them. The quiet thrill of the film lies in the sight and sound of women inventing a scene underground, and more or less from scratch: putting on their own club nights and stencilling the posters, stapling fanzines and newsletters together, importing sex toys in one case, in several others hooking up. There appears to have been a lot of wrestling in viscous substances on the bar circuit: one participant reveals she was fine with jelly and baby oil, but drew the line at spaghetti hoops, which sounds wise.
It's a film that can only benefit from emerging in the wake of Russell T. Davies' hit C4 series It's a Sin, which outlined a no less self-supporting network inhabiting the same moment; a prime opportunity for these women to get their memories on the official record. (For producer Siobhan Fahey - not the ex-Bananarama one, but a scene habituée interviewed here in turn - it's clearly been an opportunity to compile a social history that hadn't previously made it into cinemas.) These interviewees are a diverse lot: many are white Londoners, natch, but there's also testimony from Black and mixed-race women who were fighting other battles besides, trans contributors who quite possibly found this scene more welcoming than its fractured latter-day equivalent, and visitors from Northern and Eastern Europe drawn here by a vibe, a sound or a look across a crowded dancefloor. (Among the nostalgias the film prompts: for a time when Britain might have seemed attractive to onlookers.) If their testimony sometimes presents as a little scattered, that's because their interests were scattered. The scene these women curated spanned performance art, S&M, AIDS activism, garage rock, ball-less dildos, and a wider commitment to overthrowing the patriarchy. Yet they remain self-aware and funny with it, whether dredging up a moderately filthy Ian McKellen anecdote or unpacking video footage of a meeting communed by what one observer labels "the lesbian sex police" to decide whether all the whips and dog collars were good for the movement ("Everyone had completely lost their sense of humour by that point"). There may well be lessons for today's Left here: how to navigate schisms, and communicate beyond one's own echo chamber. Wherever they came from, whatever drew them there, these women are now defined by an abiding togetherness and a fierce pride in their achievements. Camcordered evidence of their working and rough-edged animations mesh with the presiding fanzine aesthetic, and there's one climactic flourish: a recreation of the (oddly indelible) events of May 23, 1988, when lesbian activists stormed the BBC's Six O'Clock News studio and got the none-more-cis Nicholas Witchell so flustered. When nothing's doing, do it yourself.
Rebel Dykes is now playing in selected cinemas, and is available to rent via the BFI Player.
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