Press Release: 24 October 2018
Launch of London’s largest heritage festival and an extraordinary production of the play #Liberty, which for the first time tells the true story of how the LGBTQ and civil rights movement was established in 1930s Britain. Based on historical sources, the play focusses on Kath Duncan, an activist whose two jail terms laid the groundwork for The National Council Civil Liberties (now known as Liberty) and the freedoms we ALL enjoy TODAY.
The 3rd International Deptford Heritage Festival will be London’s largest heritage festival and will run from 1 to 28 February 2019, which includes the global #LGBTQ History Month.
The Deptford Heritage Festival brings together the country’s leading experts on people such as Lord Nelson, Christopher Marlowe, Peter the Great, the MacMillan sisters, Kath Duncan, and Olaudan Equiano, whose lives in Deptford have not just shaped the history of Deptford but of the whole world.
Traditionally held over the first bank holiday in May, the Deptford Heritage Festival brings together local schools, community groups, choirs, artists, writers, performers, poets, musicians, historians, and local residents of all ages and diversity, to celebrate community and working class history at a period in our history in which gentrification seems about to erase the area’s awesome heritage, identity, sense of community, and place and importance in world history.
Red Blouse Theatre, a local radical theatre company first formed in the 1930s and newly re-formed for the festival, will stage a remarkable production of #Liberty, a new and highly acclaimed play that tells the story of Kath Duncan, one of the most significant Scots and UK civil rights activists of the past 100 years, whose campaigns in the 1930s laid the groundwork for The National Council Of Civil Liberties. The cast includes Emily Carding, who will play Kath Duncan, and Alex Reid, who will play Fred Copeman. Although it is not a musical, the play contains several songs, one of which, Forbidden Love, is a duet between the two gay characters in the play whose sentencing to a fifth jail term for a total of 12 years just for looking gay led to the events portrayed in the play.
It seems extraordinary that most people are at least aware of the importance of Nelson Mandela for South Africa, of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Stonewall for the USA, and of Gandhi for India, while almost no one, including leading human-and-civil-rights lawyers, are aware of the importance of Kath Duncan for the UK, and how a key battle for civil and LGBTQ rights was fought and won here in Deptford. In the year in which we celebrate 100 years of women’s activism, it seems more than appropriate that Kath Duncan, one of the most vigorous and successful activists of her time, be brought out of the obscurity to which she was condemned, most likely on account of her gender, sexuality, class, and politics.
Tickets for #Liberty cost £15 and give free access to ALL other festival events except for the History Tour Bus.
The opening night celebrity gala on 14 February 2019 (Valentine’s Day) will be a tribute to the country’s inspirational women activists production and tickets will cost £25.
Tickets are on sale now from seetickets.com and ticketsauce.com and would make fantastic Christmas presents or Valentine’s Day gifts.
All profits from the festival will fund a school holiday project run by the local community that keeps kids fed and safe during the school holidays, and which, despite growing need, receives no government or council funding. The festival and the play #Liberty are still looking for sponsorship so that more of the funds raised can go directly to this project.
For press interviews:
Text: 07871187162
Email: raymondwoolford@aol.com
Twitter: @BlouseRed @DeptfordHeritageFestival
Telephone (Festival Office): 0203 632 196
A long overdue biography of Kath Duncan, The Last Queen of Scotland, has been written by Ray Barron-Woolford and will be published by New York Publisher Austin McCauley early in 2019.
www.InsideFilm.org are about to start production of a film about Kath Duncan’s life based on Ray Barron-Woolford’s play and biography. You should contact them direct if you want to get involved.
Contact us to sponsor the festival or the play part or full . To be a friend of the festival with listing and free guest pass is £250 per year per Company . Organisation.
To donate-support the aims and projects the festival support by local Charity We Care . account sort Code 089298 Account Number 65659328 bic code OPBK GB22 International code GB10 OPBK 0892 9965 6593 28. Receipt – Invoice by request .
TICKETSOURCE.CO.UK
Buy tickets for Deptford Heritage Festival 's forthcoming events. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!
This the link to buy the book #Liberty that makes a wonderful Christmas, Birthday, Thank you gift if you include a theatre ticket, which also gives YOU Free entry to all the Deptford Heritage Festival events except the Deptford History tour Bus
TICKETSOURCE.CO.UK
Buy tickets for Deptford Heritage Festival 's forthcoming events. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!
I am so pleased people are supporting the call for Kath Duncan in the year we celebrate 100 years of #Women #Activism to be recognised as the National #WorkingClass #Hero she was. i just hope YOU come see this extraordinary production with the most diverse and talented cast to be found on any stage..hear her story, get a ticket .https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/deptford-heritage-festival
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