The mill-town wakes were seven days in summer when “the cotton slaves knew the ecstasy of freedom”; or, at least, the ecstasies of Blackpool. Fanny Hawthorn, the self-determined heroine of Stanley Houghton’s 1912 drama, has taken the non-conformist route and gone to Llandudno instead.  But has she gone alone?

The play scandalized audiences in London, Chicago and New York and although it may have lost some of its power to shock, it enjoys regular revivals even today.  It was the play in performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre during the 1996 Manchester bombing and the with which the theatre reopened in December 1998 after two and a half years of repair works.  

Rather than have a dark theatre until the spring as a result of the forced postponement The Hound of the Baskervilles, I wanted to do something that I haven’t done in a while: stage a play in a limited but highly concentrated period of time and just see what we can achieve.

Come along and find out!  We have managed to assemble a fine cast and creative team.

Photos by Steve Beeston Photography