Nourish
Nourish
The Old Police Cells Museum
Brighton Town Hall
May 2009
‘A harrowing and remarkable play…
the script is absolutely phenomenal’
Fringe Review
*****
‘An exceptionally gifted playwright…
this inspirational play is nourishment for the soul’
Three Weeks
This one-hour play was a fictional account of Sylvia Pankhurst’s monumental hunger and thirst strike in 1913, and her relationship with her prison wardress during this time.
Sylvia Pankhurst is a bizarrely unsung British heroine, perhaps because she was ahead of her time in her views. As I said in this interview with Three Weeks, Sylvia was like a one-woman A-Team; wherever she saw injustice, she was there to sort it out – no matter what anyone thought.
Nourish pairs this idealistic superwoman with a very ordinary working woman; the sort of woman on whose behalf Sylvia was campaigning, and explores both sides of the government policy of forcible feeding – torture under another name. Sylvia’s physical deterioration and mental growth are matched by the Wardress’s growing anxiety at needing to keep her job but becoming unable to ignore the guilt over what that job has become.
The role of Sylvia was written for the actor Davies Grey:
and the role of The Wardress was played by yours truly:
The run of production, directed by writer Ed Harris and produced under the banner of the new writing company Squaremoon Ltd, sold out and received critical acclaim from Three Weeks, Fringe Review, The Argus and Fringe Report.
The production was also praised by Susan Homewood of sylviapankhurst.com and I was flabbergasted when Sylvia’s son, Dr Richard Pankhurst, emailed me from Ethiopia expressing regret that he wouldn’t be able to see it.
