The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Jennie Lee: Tomorrow Is A New Day
Lochgelly Centre, March 5
Developing a play about one of the 20th Century’s most remarkable political figures has been Matthew Knights’ decade-long obsession.
The Edinburgh-based producer started researching Fife-born Jennie Lee while still a postgraduate drama student and the socialist figurehead has inspired his work in both housing and theatre.
Renowned as the instigator of the Open University while Arts Minister in Harold Wilson’s 60s Labour government, the miner’s daughter from Lochgelly was an impassioned orator who asserted workers’ rights during 1926’s general strike. She became the Commons’ youngest MP in 1929 and later experienced the Spanish Civil War as a journalist alongside George Orwell.
Fascinated by the inter-war years, Matthew discovered Jennie after reading about NHS pioneer Nye Bevan, her husband. “It struck me that Jennie was born in Lochgelly and I started by asking people if they knew who she was,” he explains.
“Older people often remember her because she was on TV in the 60s, while a lot of younger ones – people around my age – haven’t heard of her but soon find a connection to her. I’ve got two stories in my head – one about the older Jennie and one about the younger woman. It’s interesting to imagine what they’d think of each other. The idea of the play is to explore that.”
Matthew, 35, says contemporary events make highlighting Jennie’s achievements more important than ever. “The period of history she’s from really resonates with me as a writer now,” he says. “I was quite influenced politically by the 2008 recession and it’s impacted my life for more than a decade. I drew a lot of parallels when I was reading about the 1929 crash and the global meltdown then, and loads of social and political themes have come out of that. During Jennie’s life there was turmoil in politics across Europe.
“She was born in 1904 and elected as an MP aged 24, and women couldn’t actually vote until they were 30 at that time. I’m trying to make the story of her campaigning fun and accessible, and to play with it. I hope my account will be historically accurate but also be imaginative. I believe that’s how we should work out what history means to us.”
Thursday’s rehearsed reading has direction from Dunfermline-raised Emma Lynne Harley plus Kirkcaldy’s Hana MacKenzie playing Young Jennie. “We’ve worked on the play for about a year,” adds Matthew. “We’ve had feedback from local people all along and it’s a play for the whole of Fife, with the potential to hopefully go on tour round Scotland. We’re getting close to how the finished script will be.”