Dramatic Progress: Votes for Women and the Edwardian Stage


Interesting exhibition at the National Theatre looking at the role of the theatre in the movement to win the vote for women.

The show was mainly information boards and archive photographs. There was good use made of quotes and I was amazed to find that there had been over 100 suffrage plays written between 1908 and 1914. I liked the incorporation in the display of a prison cell to represent the role of the theatre at suffrage fairs including re-enacting prison life. I loved a hand bill of the entertainments at the fair.

The show threw up lots of fascinating stories and people you want to find out more about. Actress Muriel Matters flew over London in an airship dropping leaflets and Edith Garrud was known as the jujitsu suffragette who taught self-defence to the suffragettes and set up and trained body guards for the leaders.

The Actress Franchise League also campaigned for more opportunities for women in the theatre, the end to unsafe working conditions and the end to sexual harassment in the casting process. Sounds awfully like the #MeToo campaign!

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