The Merchant of Venice – 1936

Shylock is a proud and defiant man. But when he demands a severe debt to be repaid he becomes a victim of his own intransigence and most seriously, the prejudice of others.

It is London in 1936 – fascism is sweeping across Europe, and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists is threatening to march through the Jewish East End. Shylock is a survivor of anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia. A widow, she runs a small business from her dark and cramped terraced house in Cable Street, hoping to give daughter Jessica a better future. When aristocratic anti-semite Antonio desperately needs a loan, he makes a dangerous bargain with this woman he has spat on in the street. Will Shylock, bitter from a life plagued by racism and abuse, take her revenge?