Black Shirts, the 18b Testimony of Flora Poole, Spinner

As part of the UCL Festival of Culture, UCL Urban Laboratory presents a rehearsed reading of a new production by award-winning playwright Nicola Baldwin.

Inspired by testimony of women detained under emergency regulations during the Second World War, Black Shirts explores the participation of women and young people in 1930s far-right politics. Unemployed cotton spinner Flora Poole comes to London seeking a better life. Frustrated by low wages, job insecurity and high rents, she finds an outlet for her anger in Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, joining the British Union of Fascists youth section on their crusade towards the 'Greater Britain' and the battle of Cable Street.

Nicola Baldwin is alumna from the UCL Department of English (1982) who won the George Devine award for her first play Confetti and has subsequently been commissioned or produced by Royal Court, Manchester Royal Exchange, Sheffield Crucible, Bath Theatre Royal and BBC Radio Drama. She is Research Fellow at the Royal Literary Fund.

Dr Alex Hyde (Teaching Fellow, UCL Gender & Sexuality Studies) and Dr Yasminah Beebeejaun (Senior Lecturer, Bartlett School of Planning) will provide responses to the play, followed by open discussion.

Cast: Elizabeth Twells, Peter Clements, Mike Evans, Becky Simon, Emily Johnstone, Christopher Lane and Nicola Sanderson

Supported by National Theatre Studio, Peggy Ramsay Foundation, Criterion New Writing, CAST Doncaster and Bhumi Collective.

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Image: Newspaper clipping of the Battle of Cable Street, 1936