Often considered the first professional playwright in Britain, Aphra Behn is a trailblazer in more ways than one. With only a few weeks to go before the Dulwich Players’ production of The Rover, Behn’s most famous play, it is only right to honour her contribution both to the stage and to female empowerment, and present some of the women she inspired as playwrights during the Restoration. For, in Virginia Woolf’s words, “It was she who earned them the right to speak their mind

The Rover may be the colourful tale of the antics of a group of English soldiers and Italian women in Naples, but Aphra Behn’s play itself is set at a turning point in gender politics. Exactly 15 years after Charles II’s proclamation allowing women back on stage, The Rover broke more barriers in pushing the (gender) boundaries, starting with its author being one of the first professional female playwrights in history. With the carnival being in full swing in the streets of Na