Gaskell's 'Mary Barton' is staged in Manchester building funded by same Victorian mill-owners she criticised [audio 8min]
Set in 1840's Manchester, Mary Barton was the first novel written by Elizabeth Gaskell. It caused a sensation because of its damning indictment of industrialisation in the mill-towns of the north of England, and caused outrage on its publication in 1848. It painted a grim picture of working life; mill-owners growing rich on the back of the suffering of their workers. For the first time it's been adapted for the stage -- and is being performed at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, a building built by mill-owners from the profits of the cotton industry. Director of Mary Barton, Sarah Frankcom, joins presenter Jenni Murray in the studio.
Read entire article at BBC Radio 4 "Woman's Hour"