So many shows seem to want to be the new Hamilton. This witty, high-voltage musical about feminist firebrand Sylvia Pankhurst just might be it. It carries the same revisionism and irrepressible energy, its cast boasting Hamilton alumni too, even if it feels self-consciously fashioned around Lin-Manuel Miranda’s concept.
Dynamically directed by Kate Prince, it has been long in the making, staged as a work-in-progress in 2018, and its polish shows. History of the women’s suffrage movement is set to hip-hop, rap, soul and funk. The music by Josh Cohen and DJ Walde is rousing and adrenalised, the book (by Prince with Priya Parmar) accompanied by its beat and often half sung.
Prince, as founder of the ZooNation dance company, creates fun, frothy choreography as well with historical characters busting contemporary dance moves with knowing winks.
Its focus is Sylvia (Sharon Rose), daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, indomitable head of the early 20th century Suffragette movement, with whom she comes to ideological loggerheads. The roots of first-wave feminism are often, rightly, critiqued for their privilege – Emmeline Pankhurst’s campaign secured the right of some women to vote. Sylvia’s offshoot movement, immersed in Labour party socialism, was founded in equality for all, including working women.
She was also a pacifist and was rejected from the Women’s Social and Political Union that her mother founded. Emmeline Pankhurst comes out badly here but Beverley Knight brings charisma alongside the cold mothering and is a joint vocal powerhouse alongside Rose.
The production brings out rivalries and ideological differences between the Pankhurst siblings too. It is a valuable reminder that feminism has always had inner schisms and that the heated gender debates of today are not an aberration: they follow a long tradition of the right to ideological disagreement.
We are taken through some well-worn territory, from Emily Davison’s fatal Epsom Derby protest to the hunger strikes and prison force feeding of activists but the thrill of this production is all in the telling.
Set against Ben Stones’s handsome monochrome set and Natasha Chivers’s fantastic lighting, the sheer chutzpah of its vision is phenomenal.
There are irreverent comic winks too. Labour leader Keir Hardie (Alex Gaumond) apologises for his “mansplaining”; the entrance of home secretary Winston Churchill’s mother Lady Jennie (Jade Hackett, sublime) sets the stage alight with a gravel-voiced jungle number and “brrrap” flashed on a psychedelic back screen. Verity Blyth is subtly subversive as his wife, while Rose herself gives a powerful performance.
Diverse casting effectively reclaims the movement from the shadow of “white woman” feminism. One niggle is that well-known activists of colour such as Sophia Duleep Singh do not feature, and working-class characters might have been portrayed in a meatier way. But these are niggles. This is a storm of a show which can easily be re-envisaged for the West End.
Sylvia is at the Old Vic, London, until 8 April.