Match Girls

A new musical about the Bryant & May Match Girls strikes, co-produced by Red Ladder, DumbWise and Unite the Union. The show features a community cast of 20, alongside professional actors and a live band.

The musical tells the story of a group of women who fought against appalling working conditions in the Bryant & May factory. The play relays this story in an uplifting way which will leave the audiences humming the tunes on their way out as well as reminding them of the debt we owe those who have taken on the struggle for working class emancipation.

Wrong ‘Un

A new one-woman suffragette musical written by Boff Whalley and directed by Justin Audibert.

1914 and Britain is on the brink of war with Germany, while the smashed windows in the House of Commons tell of trouble nearer to home. Women fighting for the vote, let down again and again by a Liberal government, are taking direct action in their attempts to make Parliament take notice. Thrown into jails, often brutally force-fed by sadistic prison doctors, the women’s struggle mirrors the deathly prospect of mass war abroad.

Wrong ‘Un tells of the adventures of Annie Wilde, a Lancashire mill-girl galvanised by a rousing mixture of injustice, conviction, self-doubt and fear on her journey from schoolroom to prison cell.

A story in drama and song, of class, torture and war in Edwardian England.

Wrong ‘Un will open at the Leeds Big Bookend festival on 9 June then goes on to Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, Unite’s Women’s Week in Eastbourne, The Durham Miner’s Gala, The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and Ramsgate Festival in Kent.

The Thing About Psychopaths

Britain. 2013. Times are hard, but the money’s still out there if you know where to look and are prepared to gamble. Whether it’s prison or the corporate world, there are rules to be followed. Only the fittest survive. It’s every man for himself.

A searing, funny and thought-provoking new play from Ben Tagoe (‘Cold Turkey at Nana’s’ – Oran Mor / Perth Theatre, ‘Bittersweet Sunshine’ – Red Ladder and BBC Writers Academy), ‘The Thing about Psychopaths’ asks important questions about power and empathy in modern Britain.

National Tour from March – May 2013, opening 7 March at The Carriageworks, Leeds.

‘The play’s sharpness, competence and passion for its theme are memorable, and full of promise.’ The Scotsman on Ben Tagoe’s Cold Turkey at Nana’s

Recommended for ages 14+