Miss Nobodies

23 Jul 2024

Shakespeare North Playhouse

You’re in an ironmongers shop in Britain in 1919; then, as you look around, 100 years pass by. Let Ruth Cockburn and Keith Carter take you through a century of stories; the talkie movies of the ‘20s and the video nasties of the 80’s, the start of 50’s Skiffle and the birth of 90’s Britpop, class struggles in the ‘60’s and racial tension in the ‘70’s.

Playing a host of characters, from the tragic to the comical to the lyrical and the animal, their stories, sketches, songs and verse, (there’s even a prize winning competition in the interval), will have you laughing, crying and singing up to the present day.

A two-hander play takes us through the history of the last 100 years in a shop in a Lancashire town. This funny, poignant and heart-warming story will resonate with all ages and will make you think about what the next 100 years will hold for us.

Miss Nobodies was inspired by outreach done online and in the community of Great Harwood alongside research into local history and prominent figures of Lancashire. One such person is Ethel Carnie Holdsworth. A writer that worked in the mills in the early part of the last century. She is cited as the first working class, female novelist in the UK and parts of her poetry are used throughout the play to punctuate the stories.

The show mixes poetry, storytelling and music, to tell the story of a local shop spanning 100 years from 1919 to present day. Telling of the women that have made up the shop’s history, whilst also showing how the lives of women have changed over the last century.