Shoulder to Shoulder – Film premiere of Fight for the Right

One of the best things about researching Emily Wilding Davison for my play, TO FREEDOM’S CAUSE, is that it’s put me in touch with an ever expanding group of inspiring people. And last week’s premiere screening of FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT was no exception.

 

 

I met FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT’s Project Manager Nicola Gauld in June, when she came to see a performance of TO FREEDOM’S CAUSE at the Tristan Bates Theatre. She told me about the Birmingham schools’ project and I’ve followed its progress ever since.

The premiere at Birmingham’s new library was also a social occasion and I was fortunate to find myself seated next to historian and broadcaster Matthew Ward, whose work, like FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT, makes history relevant and inclusive. He played an imposing Anti suffragist in the film.

The film was the culmination of a community-based project working with pupils from two local schools (Waverley and King’s Norton Girls’), which included extensive research at the Birmingham archives, workshops as well as an intense rehearsal and filming process.

A strength of the play and the project as a whole was its focus on the Birmingham suffragettes and suffragists. Listening to a number of the students’ testimonies and feedback afterwards, it was clear that they could directly relate to the people and places in their local area. It wasn’t a story set in far off London, the women that the girls portrayed walked the same streets that they do today. History matters.

 

 

 

I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t heard of suffragette Hilda Birkitt or suffragist Catherine Osler before, but after this screening I want to find out more about them and women from other parts of the UK who were all part of mass movement to give women the vote and push for equality.

That’s the power of this film. It offers you one day in the life of Hilda, Catherine and other Birmingham campaigners but there’s also a universality to their stories and FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT deserves a much wider audience.

For more information about the film, contact the Birmingham Suffragettes project direct via their website or Twitter.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this insightful and inspiring project.

You’ve done the suffragettes, suffragists and Birmingham proud!

Kate

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For further information about TO FREEDOM’S CAUSE, click here.

Please do get in touch.

The suffragette legacy is for life, not just for 2013. 

@katewilloughby8
@2FCPlay
Facebook.com/ToFreedomsCause