Knickerbocker Glories - Ladyt Geraldine's Speech/Miss Appleyard's Awakening/How the Vote Was Won

Synopsis

Knickerbocker Glories is a triple bill of one-act Suffragette comedies written for the Actresses Franchise League - a group founded in December 1908 at the Criterion restaurant which supported the suffrage cause and included the most famous West End actresses of the Edwardian period. Three comic plays in one evening? You didn’t know that there were such things? Come and be delighted by a slice of feminist, political and theatrical history that still challenges us today!

Our Review:

11 June 2010

“Feminists have no sense of humour?” is the teasing question chalked up outside the theatre in order to tempt us inside, and indeed there is some fun to be had viewing this triple bill of plays written for the Actresses Franchise League between 1908 and 1913.

There is a curiosity value too, and the evening is a fascinating glimpse into Edwardian era agitprop. As such it is a rare pleasure but, sadly, this is drama in its most slimline guise. The three plays – Miss Appleyard’s Awakening by Evelyn Glover, Lady Geraldine’s Speech by Beatrice Harraden and How The Vote Was Won by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St John – are all written with passion, and indeed humour, but also with such predictability and thinness of character that they have the air of extended sketches rather than plays. Knickerbocker Glories assumes that the audience is clearly on its side from the start – as of course we are i...

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Latest User Review

Charlotte Belli - 2 July 2010:

I wasn't expecting to witness modern political drama from a show called Knickerbocker Glories and I wasn't disappointed. I watched three charming, witty, political comedies. I thought the choice of plays was excellent and well ordered. The first set the political climate. The second the social climate and the third was apparently set in the future..I thought that it was a real event but alas no! We didn't go on strike. Considering there is still not global suffrage and that many issues of equality are still evading us I thought the plays had a lot of resonance and completely disagree with the reviewer...(rather hilariously a Mr Cole - clearly a descendant of Horace from the last play ). Great ensemble acting, lovely characters. Well done too to the designer. Fab night....

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