Northern Broadsides

Your father is a control freak

The family business is a millstone round your neck

Home feels like a prison

And yet you have dreams …

This powerful drama written and set in the North of England, 1912, is an unflinching portrayal of an industrial Edwardian family on the brink of collapse.

John Rutherford is a tyrannical patriarch, blind to the hopes and feelings of his family. The success of the family-owned glassworks, Rutherford & Son, takes precedence over everything… even happiness.

In a household run on fear cracks begin to appear. The emotional pitch builds up like a pressure cooker. The dramatic voltage intensifies as Rutherford's absolute authority is challenged and a catastrophic family mutiny begins to unfold, threatening to destroy his world and his factory.