The play “Dare to Be Free”, will be performed on Saturday 14 May, 2pm in the Inspire Centre, 747 Stockport Road, Levenshulme Entrance is free.
The play is set in a cafe in 1908, and in a fast food outlet in 2016, with both sets of workers fed up with their working conditions and pay. Linking the two eras is Mary Quaile, come to help out her modern-day sisters because the issues she fought on 100 years ago are back with a vengeance…
Mary came from an Irish working-class background and left school at 12. She rose from being a waitress in a Manchester cafe to one of the most well-known women trade union organisers in Britain in the 1920s. In 1925 She spent four months in the Soviet Union in 1925 leading a delegation of British trade union women and was on the General Council of the TUC during the General Strike in 1926. She lived in Levenshulme for many years. She died in 1958.
The play has been written by Jane McNulty who has written for Eastenders and other television series, and is performed by four professional actors. Mary Quaile is played by Catherine Kinsella (recently seen on television in The A Word , while the waitresses in 1908 and 2016 are played by Rebecca Brown, Rachel Priest and Catarina Pinto Soromenho.
The play has been sponsored by a number of trade unions and also a number of individuals, including actors Maxine Peake and Christopher Eccleston.
Photo credit Steve Speed.
