Fantastic response to the 'Lewd Women' of Hyde

Kate Price as Sir Robert Allen, Magistrate

This is just a selection of the responses to Lewd Women and Female Felons
A powerful performance about the criminalization of poor women with illegitimate children in Georgian England. The use of ballads: brilliant! This research material was woven together in Lewd Women, which turned the tragic history of women and their children incarcerated in the County Bridewell into an extraordinarily poignant acknowledgement and tribute, in the very palce some of them were buried in unmarked graves.
I’ll never forget the beautiful ballad solo sung by Eleanor Marsden! As a member of the audience said  - ‘if you make a CD of the music from the show, there’s a guaranteed audience’.
Emma Clery

Another triumph, so deftly humanising a historical subject with skilful touches despite the scantiest of available information...
Wonderfully done and beautifully produced!
Plaudits, bouquets and five-star reviews...
Philip and Lizzie Glassborow

Thanks to you and the cast for presenting such a striking preview of the new drama. As you saw from the audience reaction, to have the story presented in dramatic form was extraordinarily powerful.
Steve Marper

What a fabulous, intimate, thought-provoking and resonant production it was today- amazing voices, both spoken, but particularly sung and so poignant and political, especially when you drew attention to the parlous state of UK prisons today. I so  look forward to seeing the themes expanded and evolving over the next few months. ...The solos were incredibly moving, added greatly to each characterisation and definitely affect the audience on another level.  I was reminded of West Side Story and how some of the really tricky urban deprivation messages in that script are communicated so effectively with song and dance. Mixed media adds so much vibrancy and throws the awful, inhuman constraints of normative "justice" into sharp relief.
Kate Watkins

Your play made a deep impression on me. Of course one knows as a fact how these girls suffered, but you really brought them to life. Congratulations!
Alys Blakeway

I was utterly utterly absorbed by your drama. There was a time-slip just as if a door to the 18th and 19th centuries had opened.  Everyone around me was riveted. I felt particularly overcome with emotion when Fanny and baby Rebecca Oliver were mentioned. It was as if I knew them so it was personal. The cast were so convincing...the lewd women were wonderful and their singing too. How clever of you to intersperse the dialogue with authentic songs of the time and to write new ones in the same vein. It must be presented to the wider public.
Norma Goodwin

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