Mugs Like Us

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”
— Richard Avedon (photographer)

Prostitutes, razor gangs, drugs, illegal alcohol: step into the criminal underworld of Sydney in the 1920s. Mugs Like Us is a trilogy of one-woman plays inspired by three photographs of Dorothy Slatter, May Smith and Rae Bibby, taken just after they were arrested.

In the 1920s Sydney police began photographing the criminals they arrested, creating the city’s first collection of ‘mug shots’. Lost for almost half a century, these extraordinary images resurfaced in the 1980s and were published by historian Peter Doyle in his book ‘Crooks Like Us’.

Riff Raff Productions, supported by Arts Council England, have been working with three emerging female playwrights to develop a trilogy of plays inspired by three of the photographs in this collection. These performances are the first time the work has been presented to an audience and the company welcomes feedback which will inform the project’s next stage of development.