Today theatre in Manchester, apart from exceptions such as Three Minute Theatre, is increasingly for the well-heeled, speaking to their agenda and excluding many working-class people and their hopes and dreams. But it was not always thus. In his new book Staging Life: The Story of the Manchester Playwrights, John Harding explores an era that […]
Fighting unemployment, poverty and austerity
The authors of austerity are in town for their annual Conservative party conference. With their refusal to halt the roll out of Universal Credit it looks like they may be doubling down on their poverty-inducing agenda. But three speakers at a Mary Quaile Club event provided evidence that the forces of iniquity can be resisted […]
Days of Hope: Manchester’s Mary Quaile reports on her visit to the Soviet Union in 1925
The year 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and it is difficult today to understand the hope that the revolution gave to ordinary women and men across the world. One of those women was Mary Quaile. An Irish immigrant who left school at 12, and, because of her commitment to improving […]
Manchester May Day festival goers march to rescue the NHS
Union banners will be flying high during the march from All Saints Park to Sackville Gardens on 29 April. The theme of this year’s May Day march is ‘Save the NHS’. Junior doctors were at the heart of last year’s Festival and this year health service workers will again lead a colourful and noisy procession […]