Characters from the Tolpuddle Martyrs of the nineteenth century to the women working for US firm Trico in the 1970s, from the early struggles for organization to the ongoing fight against zero-hours contracts, speak out here in seven plays collected in Volume One. The plays had tremendous reception in performance over the years, and are all printed here for the permanent record for the first time and to encourage new productions.
Introduction. 1) Bolton Rising by Neil Duffield (The bitterness and sacrifice involved in forming trade unions in the era of the Combination Act, 1799). 2) We Will Be Free, by Neil Gore (the agricultural wokers who formed a society in rural Dorset and were deported to Australia, 1834). 3) Hannah, by Eileen Murphy (The life and struggles of pioneering labor-movement activist and suffragette Hannah Mitchell, 1872-1956). 4) Dare to Be Free, by Jane McNulty (the work of Mary Quaile to organize café workers in the 1930s on their equivalent of zero hours contracts). 5) A Splotch of Red, by James Kenworth (A re-imagining of Keir Hardie, founder of the UK's Labor party in 1900, and Will Thorne, his tactician). 6) Chambermaids, by Kathleen McCreery (A group of chambermaids who took on the giant hotel group Trust House Forte in 1979). 7) Out on the Costa Del Trico, by Banner Theatre (he The heroic struggle in 1976 at the American-owned Trico windscreen-wiper factory in London, by largely Asian women workers). Resources about our play tradition. Authors’ biographies.
