A thrillingly fast-paced play about youthful disaffection, protest and violence, drawing on the history of the Scuttlers, the youth gangs of nineteenth-century Manchester. It’s 1885 and the streets of Manchester are crackling with energy, youth and violence. As workers pour into Ancoats to power the Industrial Revolution, 50,000 people are crammed into one square mile. The mills rumble thunderously day and night. The air is thick with smoke. Life is lived large and lived on the street. This is the world’s very first industrial suburb and the young mill workers form the very first urban gangs, fighting over their territory with belts, fists and knives. Invisible in history, their lives, deaths, loves, lusts and defiant energy tell stories that will repeat and repeat over the decades that follow. Scuttlers by Rona Munro was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in 2015. With nine leading roles and a large cast of mill workers and gang members, Scuttlers is well suited to performance by schools and youth groups, who will enjoy its physical energy and dramatic storyline.
Author
Rona Munro is a Scottish writer. She has written plays for theatre, radio, and television. Her film work includes Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird (1994), Oranges and Sunshine (2010) for Jim Loach and Aimée & Jaguar (1999), co-authored by German director Max Färberböck. Her television work includes the last Doctor Who television serial of the original run to air, Survival (1989), episodes of the drama series Casualty (BBC) and the BBC film Rehab., directed by Antonia Bird. Her play Iron which has received many productions worldwide. Other plays include Strawberries in January (translation) for the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Mary Barton for Manchester Royal Exchange, Long Time Dead for Plymouth Drum Theatre and Paines Plough, and The Indian Boy for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Munro contributed eight dramas to Radio 4's Stanley Baxter Playhouse: First Impressions, Wheeling Them In, The King's Kilt, Pasta Alfreddo at Cafe Alessandro, The Man in the Garden, The Porter's Story, The German Pilot and The Spider. In 2006 the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith presented Munro's adaptation of Richard Adams' classic book, Watership Down. Her play, The Last Witch, was performed at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival, directed by Dominic Hill, and in 2011 by Dumbarton People's Theatre. Her history cycle The James Plays, James I, James II and James III, were first performed by the National Theatre of Scotland in summer 2014 in a co-production with Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Scotland.
