My postcard collection includes this picture of Fanny Fields, a music hall star whose song The Suffragette was one of many music-hall references to the militant suffrage campaign of the 1900s. Fanny Fields found fame playing an American-Dutch girl with a lager-swilling fiancé called Schultz. She entertained her audiences with songs, clog dances, and comic patter. She was one of the most popular stars of her day, and perhaps nowhere was she more loved than in Bristol.  Happy Fanny Fields She was born Fanny Furman in New York on 15 September 1880, and started performing in Vaudeville at the age of thirteen. According to her own account, she went on the stage to help refill the family’s coffers after her parents’ fruit importing business failed. Her brother, who had been an actor, taught her to dance, and her brother-in-law, Joseph Fields, was an actor and encouraged her talent for mimicry. After a year in variety, she spent five years touring with various companies, and then joine...

Last evening I went to see Offside at the Wardrobe Theatre in Old Market, Bristol. The play, by Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish, was performed by Daphne Kouma, Tanya-Loretta Dee and Jessica Butcher. It tells the story of two women footballers who dream of playing for England. Mickey is inspired by the story of black Scottish goal keeper Carrie Boustead, and Keeley by Preston player Lily Parr (1905–1978).   One of the play’s pivotal moments is the ban imposed on women’s football by the Football Association (FA) in 1921 – a ban which was not lifted until 1971! It also looks at how women athletes are portrayed in the media, issues around body image, what women wear, and the pressure on women to conform to imposed gender roles – such as not playing football. In addition, it references links between Scottish football and the women’s suffrage campaign. For example, though not mentioned explicitly in the play, Scotland’s first female football team was set up by suffragist Helen...

Today’s guest was Stephen Pritchard, a Bristol-based drama consultant and practitioner, lecturer, workshop leader and music enthusiast.   Stephen is also a co-founder, with Peter Gabriel, of WOMAD, the world music and dance festival. He first met Gabriel when he was working as a music journalist on the Bristol Recorder (later the Recorder ), a print and audio music magazine. Stephen and Peter Gabriel were inspired to establish WOMAD because of their concerns that many British and American musicians were using music from other cultures without acknowledging its provenance. Thirty five years on, WOMAD is still going strong   Stephen has worked with Ekome National Dance Company, and written, directed and performed in community theatre. He taught drama for 27 years, studying and experimenting with the French theatre practitioner Antonin Artaud’s work through pedagogy and performance. He has also produced a series of best-selling Drama DVDs for global distribution. H...