Born in London, 1938, Churchill had some early acclaim with radio plays like The Ants (1962), not not not not not enough oxygen (1971) and Schreber's Nervous Illness (1972). However, it was through contact with feminism that she developed the language and structures to carry the complexity of her ideas. Top Girls (1982), perhaps Churchill's best play, keenly predicted the rise of bourgeois 'post-feminism' in the Thatcherite 1980s, raising stimulating questions, notably in its tour de force opening where the stories of six women from history overlap, clash and connect over a restaurant meal. Fen (1983) dissected economic and sexual oppressions in the Fenlands; the Foucault-inspired Softcops (1984) considered the meanings of criminality and punishment; and Serious Money (1987) was a witty verse thriller about the City, substantially attended by its objects of attack. Churchill's witty, powerfully intelligent dialogue and her uniquely imaginative sense of structure saw her at the forefront of British playwriting in the 1980s and 1990s.