Book and Lyrics: Kate Prince
Music: Josh Cohen and DJ Walde
Director: Kate Prince
It’s so easy to take the rights we have now for granted but women’s suffrage was hard won across decades of campaigning, and in spite of growing division in the movement, not only between peaceful and violent means but whether the organisation should stand just for women’s rights or advocate a socialist agenda of universal suffrage. Sylvia, written and directed by Kate Prince with music by Josh Cohen and DJ Walde, dramatises that division and sets it to an extraordinary hip hop, garage and RnB score.
In 1903 in Manchester, the Pankhurst family begin a sustained campaign of votes for women supported by Keir Hardy, leader of the Labour Party, itself struggling to make headway in the polls. As middle daughter Sylvia Pankhurst becomes closer to Hardy, she tries to drive the Suffragettes towards a socialist programme but mother Emmeline and sister Christabel are determined that only women’s emancipation will do. Years of descent follow as the family embark on different paths, one Sylvia refuses to compromise on.
Staged as a work-in-progress in 2018, Sylvia is back at the Old Vic, and this time Prince and her team really mean business with a musical that covers 25-years in the life of the Pankhurst family, the changing face of the Women’s Social and Political Union, vast opposition to votes for women from within the elite and a romance or two. But with an ensemble that radiates a fierce energy, attitude and with the importance of telling the story this way emanating from every performer, Sylvia has got some serious swagger.
The music feels progressive, reflecting the determination of the characters who fight and fight again, giving the equivalent of rousing speeches that galvanise the audience and carry them on the long path to enfranchisement. Where most musicals offer up a few rousing songs at the beginning and end of each Act, Sylvia is one stirring song explosion after another. From Make Some Noise in the middle of Act One, to March, Women, March, Suffrajitsu and Be the Change, the blend of funk, hip hop and garage is effortless and who doesn’t want to see Winston’s Churchill’s mother as a badass grime artist!
And the music lives through the choreography, so alive to the rhythm and specific style that Prince consistently creates within the movement including pack ensemble shapes that heave and shift as one, shot through with muscular positioning and attitude that create a sense of something really building behind the Pankhurst family story, of women taking control of their own lives and of social shifts starting to occur.
The storytelling becomes a little wayward in places, Sylvia’s adoration of Hardy is given too much attention, the love story weighing down the plot, as is her time in the East End in 1914 while the years 1918-28 receive only a montage treatment that doesn’t tell the audience nearly enough about how Sylvia was able to translate votes for some women into an eventual extension of the franchise to all, a period of Suffragette activity that receives next to no attention. There is also a huge energy lag when men are left alone on stage to politic and preside as the audience wait for the women to return. But its faults are not enough to deter an audience embracing the exciting style and storytelling.
Credited as a creative consultant as well as lead performer, she may have left Sister Act behind but if the audience weren’t already seated, they would be on their knees in worship of Beverley Knight who captivates and astounds as the prickly Emmeline who would rather disown her child than be defied. Knight’s vocal, as ever, is a thing of wonder, the range, the power, the dexterity of her voice is superlative, but her performance is also generous, making space for her team to shine alongside her.
Sharon Rose as Sylvia matches Knight in voice and in leadership quality, balancing the naivety of young love with a pure determination to help all women and knowing her own mind. Kirstie Skivington as Adela and Ellena Vincent as Christabel complete the family unit while Jade Hackett all but steals the show as Lady Churchill.
Sylvia has been years in the making, a clear labour of love for all involved, and while it may not be quite perfect, like the Suffragettes, Prince and her team have smashed it.
Runs until 8 April 2023
