“One of South London’s most forward-thinking playhouses” Time Out on Tara Theatre
Women’s experiences across generations and cultures are represented in I’ll Say It Again; a diverse festival celebrating pioneering women, both historical and contemporary, telling stories of resistance and protest, civil rights and friendship, migration and liberation. I’ll Say It Again! is a month-long festival of work by multicultural artists – local and international – from the worlds of theatre, music, poetry, food and dance.
I’ll Say It Again! will take place in the lead-up to Processions, a national mass-participation artwork on 10th June in collaboration with Artichoke tracing the historic march by women through the streets of London in June 1918.
The festival will be launched on 2nd May with a visit from BBC Radio 4’s The Listening Project in a free event featuring a collection of dynamic, funny and moving conversations between different generations of women, straight from the British Library’s audio archives. Led by broadcaster Fi Glover, artists from the festival will also be sharing their stories and the event will be recorded for broadcast on 5 May. Staged as part of the annual Wandsworth Arts Fringe and programmed by Tara Arts, other highlights of I’ll Say It Again include
- Writer, comedian and broadcaster Natalie Haynes’s Honour Among Thebes (5 May) a one-off show that combines her knowledge, wit and passion for ancient Greek theatre, as heard in her popular BBC Radio 4 series Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.
- Stories, live cooking and music from Syria are on the menu in Complicité Cooks: Syria, Recipes from Home, an interactive evening produced by Complicité (22 May) with Dina Mousawi and Itab Azzam, authors of the hugely popular cookbook.
- A rare performance by Royal Shakespeare Company veteran actress Eileen Page in her solo play Eleanor of Aquitaine: Mother of the Pride, which looks at the only woman in history to be Queen of France and Queen of England (16-18 May).
- After a sell-out run in 2017, We Are The Lions, Mr. Manager by Townsend Productions returns to Tara Theatre (7 May) with the remarkable true story of Jayaben Desai, leader of the 1976-78 Grunwick Film Processing Factory strike.
- A chance to see Soho Theatre / Talawa Theatre’s acclaimed production Half-Breed, by rising star Natasha Marshall – an energetic one-woman dark comedy about finding your voice, fearlessness and escape (29 May).
- A trio of London’s top cabaret stars present The Secrets of the Bluestockings (9 May), a quirky new show from Tricity Vogue, Ginger Blush and Audacity Chutzpah providing an alternative history of literary ladies, derring-do and dangerous wandering wombs.
- Writers Kamila Shamsie, Razia Iqbal, Grace Nichols, Gurpreet Bhatti and Preti Taneja reclaim classic female characters from the ancient Indian epic, The Mahabharata (31 May).
- A rousing musical end to the festival with a concert by the all-female London Klezmer Quartet (2 Jun).
Speaking about the festival Jatinder Verma, Artistic Director of Tara Arts said “From Jocasta to Gandhari, Eleanor to Jayaben and Billie to Babs, I’m delighted that Tara Theatre will be hosting the explosive creativity of I’ll Say It Again! to mark Britain’s centenary of women’s right to vote. Diversity is in Tara’s DNA and this season signals Tara Arts’ determination to connect artists and audiences in joyous diversity.”
Writer and Tara Arts Trustee Preti Taneja said “This is a time to celebrate women’s creativity and strength, and to give voice to our lives, achievements and experiences across the ages. Recovering lost histories and revealing hidden stories, showcasing emerging female talent alongside critically acclaimed women across cultural fields has been Tara’s signature over four decades of theatre in the UK. Equal rights begin with the ability to imagine a new world – and that’s where women creative artists take centre stage. I’ll say it again! is an extraordinary marker of women’s political activism and I’m delighted to be part of it.”
Leave a Reply