STAGING LIFE: THE MANCHESTER PLAYWRIGHTS

In his latest book, John has chronicled the history of the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester founded by Annie Horniman in 1907 as an answer to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin which at the time was producing works by such playwrights as  Yeats, Lady Gregory, Moore, Martyn, Padraic Colum, George Bernard Shaw and Synge.

Ms Horniman threw down a challenge to Lancashire playwrights to rival their work and out of this challenge the school known as the Manchester Playwrights was born.

This included such luminaries as Stanley Houghton, Harold Brighouse, and Allan Monkhouse.

With such formidable writers, the Gaiety soon became the most progressive theatre in the country, the first of its kind to create an identifiably local school of playwrighting as Tony Wilson famously said, “This is Manchester, we do things differently here.”.

Dipping into this fabulously researched book I was fascinated to read how shocking some of these productions were considered at the time.

Take, for example, Hindle Wakes by Stanley Houghton, the play concerns a young mill girl, Fanny Hawthorn whose weekend away unravels in tragedy as it is revealed she had spent a proverbial "dirty weekend" with the son of a local rich mill owner.

This was in 1912 when such behaviour was certainly frowned upon, however Fanny isn't one to conform and tells her lover that basically they had had their fun and its over and more importantly doesn't want or need his riches and can make her way through the world on her own, a great example of early sexual equality.

Incidentally when a film was made of the play a lot of the scenes were shot at Monton Mill and the canal side nearby.

We all know Hobson's Choice which incidentally is playing at Salford Arts Theatre as we speak.

Written by Eccles born, Harold Brighouse the play tells of headstrong Maggie Hobson a woman with plenty of fire in her soul who chooses Sam Mossop as her husband a man considered to be much lower than her on the social scale, once again we see strong independent women at the fore.

Did you know that when the 1954 film was premiered it was shown at The Broadway Cinema, Eccles? I only learnt that from reading this marvellous book.

This book offers so much and it is a pleasure to read, my eyes were opened at the wealth of talent in the area and is a fabulous insight to the world of repertory theatre and the pleasures and pitfalls that go with it.

I can honestly recommend this book to anybody with a love of both theatre and local history, John Harding has done a marvellous job with his research and photographs that adorn the book and I doff my cap to him a remarkably researched and an essential read.

The book costs £18.99 and at present is available from Greenwich Exchange  www.greenex.co.uk

FREE postage within the United Kingdom.