Townsend Productions

A delightful new version of the classic book by Robert Tressell.

Using instrumentation, songs of the period, movement, physicalisation, comedy and characterisation to create the spirit and clarity of the political message, the play shares with its audience a year in the life of a group of painters and decorators, as they renovate a three-storey town house for Mayor Sweater. It traces their struggle for survival in a complacent and stagnating Edwardian England. These workers are the "philanthropists" who throw themselves into back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters

Performed as a two-hander, the production remains as vivid and as relevant as when it was written almost a century ago.

Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, has become a classic of working-class literature since its first publication in 1914. The themes and style of the piece are eternally relevant and provoking as it puts life and politics into sharp focus in an entertaining and accessible way.