2024
To honour Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 there will be a staged reading of Theresa by Julia Pascal on Sunday 28 January 2024 7.00pm at Burgh House, NW3 1LT.
Julia Pascal’s controversial play Theresa smashed the myth that collaboration with the Germans could never have happened in Britain. It exposed how the Channel Islands’ government collaborated with the occupying Germans and betrayed Jews on the Island to the Nazis.
Theresa is based on the true story of Viennese refugee Theresia Steiner who was gassed in Auschwitz after being deported from Guernsey.
The drama spotlights a reluctant history which shows the only British territory to be invaded by the Nazis and how the Channel Islands adopted the Nazi Race Laws. It exposes large-scale governmental collaboration headed by the Bailiff Willam Carey.
Theresa is banned in Guernsey. It toured the UK, France, Germany and Austria over two decades. As The Road to Paradise it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
This is your chance to see it.
Pascal Theatre Company’s Lottery Heritage Funded project Women for Women continues:
Original drawing by Anne Sassoon
This major project has unearthed more and more women whose histories have been blanked. We are receiving tributes to them which enrich Bloomsbury and British history. It is shocking how many women’s lives have been eradicated. Painstaking research reveals the importance of their fight for equality. We started. We go on. And on..
Read about women we should all know about:
Original drawing by Anne Sassoon
WOMEN FOR WOMEN: Spring 2024
We have a programme of events organised for International Women’s Day/Women’s History Month: March 2024. This will include talks aimed at diverse audiences, walks and talks and the launch of a bench to commemorate 19th century women in Bloomsbury.
Workshops
Why does Heritage matter?
Why do we want to celebrate it?
Heritage is not the past: it is still part of our present. We are looking at 19th century women who changed our world. They became doctors, lawyers, actors, explorers, inventors. It was they who banged the door open even if today it is still a door that needs removing from its hinges.In This summer and autumn we held workshops for a diverse group of volunteers and showed them how to use a community space to excite new audiences to learn about these neglected women.
Bloomsbury Festival 2023: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman!
A dance-theatre performance written and directed by Julia Pascal
Our 2023 workshops prepared volunteers to perform in the Bloomsbury Festival.
For this we were joined by students from London Contemporary Dance School and undergraduates from St Lawrence University’s Study Abroad program as well as a Polish dancer to produce An Unsuitable Job for a Woman!
The performance, at the Royal National Hotel in the Bloomsbury Festival, attracted audiences from diverse backgrounds. people who were curious to see how dance theatre can reveal hidden histories.
Responses:
‘Julia worked in a way that drew out the unique skills of each performer and she invited collaboration amongst the group. By intergrating many art forms, I feel we were able to tell the women’s stories in a dynamic, accessible and entertaining way.’ (Nadya)
‘Brilliant, shocking, moving, enlightening, hilarious …history which we should all know about …stunning choreography – extraordinary! …brought alive a kicking searing historical episode which I found fascinating and very moving.’ (audience)
‘Important work to be seen by a wider audience.’ (audience)