A fondly remembered studio-based drama, and an example of the sort of superb production that was regularly transmitted by BBC Television.
When actress Georgia Brown complained to the BBC about the lack of meaningful roles for women in television drama their response was to tell her to go and find a series she would like to be in. Along with script editor Midge Mackenzie she discussed the possibility of doing a drama series based on the true story of the women's suffragette movement at the turn of the century. Reflecting the determination that would be illustrated by the women in the drama series, Brown then cornered high-profile producer Verity Lambert at an awards ceremony and together the trio of Brown, Mackenzie and Lambert were given the green light by BBC bosses and 'Shoulder to Shoulder,' the first realistic and non-condescending drama series to portray the movement aimed at winning the right to vote for women in Britain, was born.
However, according to Brown, even some 60 years after the suffragette's were successful, there were still prejudices to overcome. Ideally, Brown and Mackenzie would have preferred the series to be written by women. But when they failed to secure anyone suitable, it was male writers they had to turn to. Each script was totally scrutinised and out went many popular held misconceptions, innuendos and untruths that Brown referred to as 'the male point of view'.
What was left was a powerful drama that depicted the intolerance and hardship that the women had to endure to make themselves heard above a prejudiced society. Harrowing scenes of brutality by the powers that be were starkly portrayed -such as Lady Constance Lytton being held down by prison warders as she is force fed by doctors shoving a tube down her throat to pump food into her. Women being beaten by the police, arrested en masse and publicly ridiculed led their originally peaceful protestations to take on new tactics as they took to smashing windows, defacing a nude Venus in the National Gallery and -in the case of Emily Wilding Davison, making the ultimate sacrifice by flinging herself in front of the King's horse at Epsom racetrack and dying from her injuries.
But the series also managed to cut a fine balance by also showing the private lives and the petty prejudices of the women involved, whilst acknowledging the brilliant speeches made and the unfailing courage that these women had. As Midge Mackenzie told 'TV Week,' "They were very gutsy ladies who were treated with enormous brutality and who have been blatantly ignored by historians. I find it hard to understand why I wasn't taught about this at school. The issues of the vote united women in a way that no issue had ever done before and is likely to again."
The key players in the true-life (and televisual) drama are Emmeline Pankhurst, who forms the Women's Social and Political Union, the driving power behind the women's movement. Portrayed by Sian Phillips she is shown as a sensitive, caring, charismatic woman who was also responsible for an increasing militancy in the campaign, prompted by an occasion in 1905 when her daughter Christabel (Patricia Quinn), was ejected from a Liberal meeting in Manchester and then arrested and imprisoned for assaulting the police because she had dared ask the meeting about votes for women. Christabel, a trained lawyer eventually had to help the fight from exile in Paris.
Sylvia Pankhurst (Angela Down), the middle daughter, who doesn't feel as though working women should have any part in their movement. She organises the women of London's East End as a way of leading them out of poverty. Annie Kenney (Georgia Brown), a mill worker who joins the cause and eventually becomes a dynamic speaker for the movement.
'Shoulder to Shoulder' was shown on BBCTV in 1974, and also had an impressive supporting male cast including Michael Gough as Emmeline's husband, Dr Richard Pankhurst, Fulton MacKay as Keir Hardie, Robert Hardy as Asquith and an early role for Bob Hoskins as Jack Dunn.
Sadly neglected by most television historians, books and websites, 'Shoulder to Shoulder' was a stirring piece of British televisual drama that portrayed one of the most important movements in the history of civil rights, and is therefore more than deserving of its place in Television Heaven.
PROGRAMME DETAILS
Season 1, Episode 1: The Pankhursts
Original Air Date—3 April 1974
Directed by
Waris Hussein
Written by
Ken Taylor
Episode Cast
Siân Phillips ... Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
Angela Down ... Sylvia Pankhurst
Patricia Quinn ... Christabel Pankhurst
Liz Ashley ... Mrs. Rose Hyland
Pat Beckett ... Mrs. Morrissey
Iona Christie ... Harry (aged 3)
Michael Gough ... Dr. Richard Pankhurst
Sheila Grant ... Teresa Billington
Nicola Jacobs ... Adela (aged 6)
Roy Jacobs ... Harry (aged 10)
Sylvia Kay ... Ellen
Jane Knowles ... Shop Assistant
Rosemary Macvie ... Miss Roper
Martin Matthews ... Philip Snowden
Kenneth McClellan ... Returning Officer
Antonia Pemberton ... Dr. Margaret Bell
Louise Plank ... Adela (aged 12)
Jenny Till ... Eva Gore-Booth
Wendy Underwood ... Christabel (aged 12)
Bill Ward ... Man in Hall
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Season 1, Episode 2: Annie Kenney
Original Air Date—10 April 1974
Directed by
Waris Hussein
Written by
Alan Plater
Episode Cast
Siân Phillips ... Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
Angela Down ... Sylvia Pankhurst
Patricia Quinn ... Christabel Pankhurst
Sheila Allen ... Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence
Georgia Brown ... Annie Kenney
Suzan Cameron ... Jessie Kenney
Gerald Case ... Chairman
Dennis Chinnery ... Robert Bell
Basil Clarke ... Halliday
Hazel Coppen ... Mrs. Roe
Jon Croft ... Charlie
Anne Dyson ... Mrs. Kenney
Sheila Grant ... Teresa Billington
Robert Hardy ... Asquith
Ronald Hines ... Mr. Pethick-Lawrence
Philip Jackson ... Carrick
Fulton Mackay ... Keir Hardie
Sally Miles ... Flora Drummond
Verne Morgan ... Butler
James Taylor ... Chatterton
Molly Urquhart ... Mary
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Season 1, Episode 3: Lady Constance Lytton
Original Air Date—17 April 1974
Directed by
Waris Hussein
Written by
Douglas Livingstone
Episode Cast
Siân Phillips ... Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
Patricia Quinn ... Christabel Pankhurst
Sheila Allen ... Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence
Carrie Lee Baker ... Girl in Lincoln's Inn Hotel
Christopher Banks ... Curtis Bennett
Eve Belton ... Catherine Hogan
James Bree ... Medical Officer 2
Bridget Brice ... Ruth
Georgia Brown ... Annie Kenney
Suzan Cameron ... Jessie Kenney
Elizabeth Cassidy ... Girl in Holloway
Geoffrey Chater ... Prison Governor, Holloway
Patience Collier ... Lady Lytton
John Dunbar ... Sir Albert de Rutzen
Margaret Ford ... Emily Lutyens
Petronella Ford ... Elsa Gye
Peter Geddis ... Lloyd George
Susan Glanville ... Marie Brackenbury
Jenny Laird ... Matron of Holloway
Lala Lloyd ... Wardress 3
Elisabeth Lynne ... Rogers
Sally Miles ... Flora Drummond
Jonathan Newth ... Lord Lytton
Judy Parfitt ... Lady Constance Lytton
Hilary Sesta ... Wardress 1
Anthony Sharp ... Medical Officer 1, Walton
Pam St. Clement ... Holloway Wardress
Sally Travers ... Wardress 2
Helen Weir ... Betty Balfour
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Season 1, Episode 4: Christabel Pankhurst
Original Air Date—24 April 1974
Directed by
Moira Armstrong
Written by
Ken Taylor
Episode Cast
Siân Phillips ... Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
Angela Down ... Sylvia Pankhurst
Patricia Quinn ... Christabel Pankhurst
Sheila Allen ... Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence
Rosalind Bailey ... Woman on train
John Boxer ... Judge
Georgia Brown ... Annie Kenney
Claire Davenport ... Nurse Pine
Robert Hardy ... Asquith
Ronald Hines ... Mr. Pethick-Lawrence
Lorna Kilner ... Wardress
John Lawrence ... Doctor
Fulton Mackay ... Keir Hardie
Ronald Mayer ... Constable on Platform
Sally Miles ... Flora Drummond
Natasha Morgan ... Muriel Delahaye
Maureen Morris ... Adela Pankhurst
Maureen Pryor ... Dr. Ethel Smyth
Michael Rose ... Magistrate
Stuart Saunders ... Detective Inspector
Frank Sieman ... Bailiff
Joy Turpin ... Evelyn Sharp
Bruce White ... Constable in court
Lewis Wilson ... Detective Inspector
Marguerite Young ... Lady Blessey
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Season 1, Episode 5: Outrage
Original Air Date—1 May 1974
Directed by
Moira Armstrong
Written by
Hugh Whitemore
Episode Cast
Siân Phillips ... Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
Angela Down ... Sylvia Pankhurst
Patricia Quinn ... Christabel Pankhurst
James Appleby ... Warder
Rosalind Ayres ... Maisie Dunn
Sheila Ballantine ... Emily Wilding Davison
Irene Barnett ... East End girl #1
Ray Barron ... Labourer #1
Georgia Brown ... Annie Kenney
Tricia Clarke ... Ida Kittell
Valerie Colgan ... Mary Richardson
Clifford Cox ... Labourer #2
Claire Davenport ... Nurse Pine
Harry Davis ... Workman
Hazel Douglas ... Alice Marlowe
John Garvin ... Prison Doctor
Bob Hoskins ... Jack Dunn
Richard Hurndall ... Reader
Andonia Katsaros ... Melvina Walker
Tom Macaulay ... Junior Minister
Lucinda MacDonald ... May Kittell
Ray Marioni ... Waiter
Sally Miles ... Flora Drummond
Beryl Nesbitt ... Woman at Bazaar
Maureen Pryor ... Dr. Ethel Smyth
Pamela Saire ... East End girl #2
Nickola Sterne ... Wardress
Lans Traverse ... Zellie Emerson
Anne-Louise Wakefield ... Stella Kittell
Shelagh Wilcocks ... Woman Prisoner
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Season 1, Episode 6: Sylvia Pankhurst
Original Air Date—8 May 1974
Directed by
Waris Hussein
Written by
Ken Taylor
Episode Cast
Siân Phillips ... Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst
Angela Down ... Sylvia Pankhurst
Patricia Quinn ... Christabel Pankhurst
Peggy Aitchison ... Mrs. Payne
Cyril Appleton ... Insp. Riley
Georgia Brown ... Annie Kenney
Christine Edmunds ... Marthe
David Ellison ... Policeman
Mark Elwes ... Asquith's Secretary
Margaret Flint ... Mrs. Savoy (as Maggie Flint)
Myra Frances ... Norah Smyth
Peter Geddis ... Lloyd George
Melanie Gibson ... Sylvia (aged 10)
Michael Gough ... Dr. Richard Pankhurst
Andonia Katsaros ... Melvina Walker
Fulton Mackay ... Keir Hardie
Pamela Manson ... Woman at the London Pavilion
Sally Miles ... Flora Drummond
Arnold Peters ... George Lansbury
Maureen Pryor ... Dr. Ethel Smyth
Donald Tandy ... Inspector
Lans Traverse ... Zellie Emerson
