Red Ellen – at York Theatre Royal from 24-28 May – is a remarkable new play by multi award-winning poet and playwright Caroline Bird that tells the inspiring and epic story of Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson, who was forever on the right side of history, forever on the wrong side of life. Caught between revolutionary and parliamentary politics, Ellen fights with an unstoppable, reckless energy for a better world.
A working class woman in a man’s world, Ellen Wilkinson campaigned tirelessly for social change – bringing in free school meals and leading the Jarrow March from the North East to London through York, Nottingham and the Midlands to deliver a petition to reduce unemployment and poverty.
She was the only female minister in Attlee’s government, and served as a vital member of Churchill’s cabinet, taking sole charge of air raid shelters during the war.
Further afield, she campaigned for Britain to aid the fight against Franco’s Fascists in Spain, battled to save Jewish refugees in Nazi Germany and published some of the first anti-fascist literature in the UK.
Running (often quite literally) into the likes of Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway, she had affairs with communist spies and government ministers. But, despite all of this, she still found herself – somehow – on the outside looking in.
A Northern Stage, Nottingham Playhouse & Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh production
Box office 01904 623568 | yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
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