‘[i]If Lancashire playwrights will send their plays to me I shall pledge myself to read them through. Let them not write as one dramatist does, about Countesses and Duchesses and society existing in imaginations, but about their friends and enemies – about real life.[/i]’ Annie Horniman In 1907, Annie Horniman established the first repertory theatre in Britain, the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester. As well as staging classic plays, she championed new and local writers, in particular three men who became known as the ‘Manchester School’ of playwrights: Harold Brighouse, Stanley Houghton and Allan Monkhouse. Horniman’s Choice brings together four forgotten plays by the ‘Manchester School’ to celebrate Annie Horniman’s influence. Amidst four different early twentieth century Lancashire settings – in the mines, the mills, the home and the front line – these plays explore community, responsibility and loss.
