Red Ellen
'A working-class woman inside the walls of Westminster? If that is not espionage, I do not know what is.'
Forever on the right side of history, but on the wrong side of life, Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson is caught between revolutionary and parliamentary politics as she fights for a better world.
Battling to save Jewish refugees in Nazi Germany; campaigning for Britain to aid the fight against Franco's Fascists in Spain; leading two hundred workers in the Jarrow Crusade against unemployment and poverty... she pursues each cause with a passionate, reckless conviction.
And yet – despite a life spent running into the likes of Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway, serving in Churchill's cabinet, having affairs with communist spies and government ministers – she still finds herself, somehow, on the outside looking in.
Caroline Bird's play Red Ellen is the remarkable true story of an inspiring and brilliant woman. It was first produced by Northern Stage, Nottingham Playhouse and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in 2022.
Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright, whose other plays include The Trojan Women (Gate Theatre), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Northern Stage) and Chamber Piece (Lyric Hammersmith). She won the Forward Prize for best poetry collection in 2020, and has been shortlisted for many other awards for her poetry and drama.