What with rehearsals, Christmas and New Year it’s been a busy period and as a result I have found myself seriously lacking in any awareness of what is going on in the world outside of Picton Place and my house. So having a spare five minutes today I was casually perusing the Guardian website when I stumble upon the list of New Year’s resolutions Jane Martinson has compiled from various well-known women. I was particularly struck by that of Deborah Coles (co-director of the pressure group Inquest) “ As the mother of a 12 year old daughter I hope that the politicisation of young people means being a feminist will no longer be a term of abuse in the playground”.

I first encountered Ibsen’s A Doll’s House as an A-level student within a typical example of one of our country’s many all girl educational institutions ... here being called a feminist in the playground would ... never have happened. Politics and feminism could not have been further from our minds as adolescents in the late 90’s ... at my school anyway, it wasn’t until I was well into my University course that I became properly aware of the theories behind the various feminist movements. What with the economic and political turmoil our country and the wider world has suffered of late it has been reinforced to me just how timely our production and its message may be,  as more and more people, the younger generations in particular, are forced to take an interest and fight for their rights as the world changes around them. We have a number of school parties coming to see our production, and I now find myself very much looking forward to the post production Q&A’s, I am hoping we are to be challenged with some very interesting questions by today’s students.