The full cast and creative team have been announced for the new play from award-winning poet and playwright Caroline Bird titled Red Ellen, ahead of its upcoming premiere at Northern Stage before tour dates in Nottingham, Edinburgh and York. 

The play tells the remarkable story of Ellen Wilkinson, the Labour MP who fought tirelessly for social change. She was the only female in Attlee’s government, bought in free school meals and led the Jarrow March from the North East to London to deliver a petition to reduce unemployment and poverty. A working class woman, she served as a vital member of Churchill’s cabinet, taking sole charge of air raid shelters during the war, battled to save Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and published some of the first anti-fascist literature in the UK. 

Writer Caroline Bird said: “What’s made me sad and reflective in terms of writing the play, is just how pertinent it is today. There’s a feeling that Ellen spent her whole life walking, marching down a moving walkway that was going in the opposite direction. She had the wind in her face. Sometimes she was having to fight just to stay still. And sometimes it feels like that now. We have to fight to keep what we’ve got before we can even move further along. And there was so much further to go on this march, so much further to go. 

“And the left is divided. That’s the other thing that Ellen really fought for. She wanted unity. She was like, if we’re going to embody any kind of energy we need to have a team rather than factions. And she was right that squabbling on the left does strengthen the right. And so many of the speeches and the questions and the trouble that she was trying to illuminate are exactly the same now.”

Playing the remarkable Ellen Wilkinson will be Bettrys Jones. Joining her as Ellen’s sister Annie Wilkinson will be Helen Katamba, Laura Evelyn will play British Communist activist Isabel Brown, Sandy Batchelor will take on the role of Otto Katz; a Czech agent, Kevin Lennon will play Labour politician Herbert Morrison, Mercedes Assad will play Mr Ansley and Jim Kitson will play David, a local man from Jarrow. 

The piece will be directed by Wils Wilson, with set and costume design by Camilla Clarke, music and sound by Jasmin Kent Rodgman, and lighting by Kai Fischer. The Felling Male Voice Choir will perform the Jarrow March Song, which has been written by Rodgman, with lyrics by Caroline Bird.

The show will begin at Northern Stage on 25 March and run until 9 April, before visiting Nottingham (13-30 April), Edinburgh (4 – 21 May) and York (24 – 28 May).

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