Eastern Angles Support New Ipswich Suffragette Play

Eastern Angles is very proud to announce that the company is supporting a brand new play called Footsteps which tells the story of the Ipswich Suffragettes. 

In this year of commemoration and celebration, it’s hard not to notice that it’s 100 years since women gained the right to vote. But few people realise that the birth of the Votes for Women campaign took place in Suffolk. Now Ipswich playwright Martha Loader is set to lift the lid on this little-known Suffragette story with a fascinating new play, entitled Footsteps.

Produced as part of the Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes – 100 Years On Festival and based on research by local historian Joy Bounds, Footsteps is a free promenade performance that will bring the actions and experiences of local campaigners to life. Stopping off at three site-specific locations across Ipswich town centre, audiences will follow two actors as they reconstruct key events and introduce important local figures such as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, her sister Millicent Fawcett and Constance Andrews, famous for boycotting the census by staging an illegal overnight sit-in at the building now known as Arlington’s café.

“It’s fascinating to think that local women were staging these protests on our doorstep,” says Producer, Karen Goddard. “Force-feeding of the women who set fire to Felixstowe’s Bath Hotel actually went on in Ipswich Gaol.” 

“Sometimes the direct action was quite imaginative – for instance, in Ipswich ten little girls were placed on a flat-bed open carriage and processed around the town. Nine were dressed in the national costume of countries that had already given women the vote, but poor little ‘Britannia’ had a label around her neck saying; “No Vote for Britannia Yet”.”

Eastern Angles Theatre Company’s Playwrights East scheme is supporting the project and the play will be performed in Ipswich Town Centre on Saturday 29th September, Thursday 4th October and Friday 5th October.

There will be two free promenade performances each day starting at 11.30am and 2pm from Arras Square (the pedestrian courtyard area near Ipswich Tourist Information Centre and the Wagamama entrance to the Buttermarket Shopping Centre).

“The idea of the promenade play is to take audiences on a journey around the town and tell them a little bit about the important part Ipswich played in this historical campaign,” says Karen Goddard. “We hope it will be both fun and entertaining but also a fitting and poignant tribute to the women who worked so hard to win the vote”.

Each circular promenade will take approximately 50 minutes starting at Arras Square and continuing to Arlington’s and then Dial Lane before returning to the starting point where audiences can participate in a special Polling Booth activity. There’s no need to book, just turn up wearing outdoor clothing!

Festival Chair Joy Bounds said 'It will be wonderful to see those amazing women come to life campaigning for the vote on the streets of Ipswich, and we would like to thank Eastern Angles for their invaluable support. At the Festival on 6th October, there will be talks exploring gender equality, empowerment workshops, more drama, singing, crafts, poetry - and much more. Click here for more details. 

Footsteps is produced in association with the Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes – 100 Years On Festival at the University of Suffolk on Saturday 6th October. The festival is supported by the National Lottery and Ipswich Borough Council.