In 2018, a street in Montparnasse in Paris’s 6th arrondissement was renamed to the Allée Claude Cahun-Marcel Moore, apparently making it the world’s first street officially named after a same-sex couple. It’s a nice gesture on behalf of the Paris government and genuinely notable as a step forward in the continuing battle for LGBTQ+ acceptance and celebration.
And yet, to me at least, the inevitable multitude of articles breathlessly celebrating this and the similar fervour that arises whenever a marginalised person has their name slapped onto something, are missing the point somewhat. Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore aren’t just names to be vaguely gestured to when we want to recognise the many, many overlooked contributions that queer people have made to our culture and our history. They were real people, with real lives and real deaths – and real names, as it happens, Cahun and Moore being the noms de plume of Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe respectively.
Written and directed by Ella Matthews and assistant directed by Rosie Palmer-Barnes, The Beauty of It is a new play from UMDS that attempts to rectify how these two have been viewed by history.
For the unaware – which I would imagine is most people, including myself prior to hearing of the show – Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe were a pair of French surrealist artists and lovers who lived together in Jersey during its occupation by the Nazis. Their experimentation with gender presentation, their work in the avant-garde, and Schwob’s Jewish parentage naturally brought them under scrutiny. But, despite this, they worked tirelessly to distribute posters, leaflets, and messages – what they called “paper bullets”, under the pseudonym of “The Soldier With No Name” – to both the people of Jersey and the occupying German soldiers.
Louie Robinson and Olivia Neale play the real Lucy and Suzanne respectively, trapped on Jersey under a regime that they despise with nobody for company except each other. Despite only covering a small fraction of the pair’s lives, Matthews’s writing and performances of both Robinson and Neale make clear how genuine their love for each other is.
Robinson is outstanding as the more brash and impulsive Lucy, pacing like a caged tiger and desperate to do something about the occupying force. Neale is a well-observed contrast, quieter and more rational but equally passionate. Most of the dialogue between these two is sparky and characterful, but at times it crosses over into being somewhat over-expository – a few too many times we watch either Lucy or Suzanne describe events occurring just offstage, either by looking out of an implied window or simply reading a newspaper, and these sections can come off as slightly dry or stilted.
These moments are not common, though, and are thankfully balanced out by the play’s other two characters. Theodore Anderson-Lincoln and Millie Hampson-May play Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, the exaggerated, surrealist alter egos of Lucy and Suzanne. Dressed in tuxedos and with cabaret-style makeup applied, the two provide interludes that serve to comment on the events of the story thus far.
Naturally, the fourth wall is non-existent in these sections and the characters talk directly to the audience about Lucy, Suzanne, and each other, in addition to explaining the incremental stages of a fascist takeover, a scarily relevant topic in 2026. Anderson-Lincoln and Hampson-May are an excellent double act, finishing each others’ sentences and bringing a playful whimsy to their scenes even when the material is serious and downcast.
Claude and Marcel are also called upon to play, in-universe, various Nazi officers and German soldiers, part of the invading force on Jersey that investigate the house and actions of Lucy and Suzanne. Anderson-Lincoln in particular is allowed to play a Nazi who clearly has some remorse for what they’ve done, or at least doubt in their past actions. The play does not act as though this can excuse their crimes – as well it shouldn’t – but the character adds some believability to the Nazis we are presented with, as Claude and Marcel’s effervescence and heightened comedic personas occasionally bleed through in their interactions with Lucy and Suzanne.
Designer Ella Fisher creates a cluttered but homely sitting room for Lucy and Suzanne to call their own, as well as a sheet of blue material draped at the back of the stage with empty picture frames attached. Some of the pair’s most famous pieces are recreated outright, including the banner they hung in a local church: “Jesus is great, but Hitler is greater – because Jesus died for people, but people die for Hitler.”
As the seemingly endless paper bullets pile high, the pair are placed under increasing strain, with the Nazis breathing down their necks and eventually arresting them. This progression is mirrored in Claude and Marcel’s interludes, which become less frequent as the play goes on as they force themselves to continue in their Nazi personas, something Claude in particular takes issue with. The upbeat swing theme that heralds their arrival, courtesy of sound designer Aryaa Chakraborty, is somehow a lot more difficult to enjoy by play’s end.
Lucy and Suzanne – the real Lucy and Suzanne – were actually quite lucky by World War Two standards. Their arrest came in 1944, and their death sentence was handed down too late to be carried out before the island’s liberation. Neither were among the three Jewish residents of Guernsey murdered in Auschwitz gas chambers, nor were their names in the list of 21 Jersey residents imprisoned in Nazi camps. Lucy lived another nine years, Suzanne another twenty-seven.
I say this not to downplay their suffering, but to highlight the very real threat they faced in carrying out their activism at all. Every banner hung, every ink-stained leaflet distributed, every paper bullet fired – each time they chose to fight back against the regime was another throw of the dice, another item on their laundry list of crimes that could, and almost did, result in their being arrested, deported, and killed.
That they did not yield to the Nazis when faced with these circumstances is proof enough that they deserve an honest tribute to their lives, and The Beauty of It certainly delivers. It’s a legitimate achievement for a play that leans into the surreal as much as this one does, that features so many layers of pseudonym and false identity, to be one of the most sincere and genuine homages these two have ever received.
Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore – Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe – are not important because they had a street named after them. They are important because they existed.