Sylvia

Sylvia is at Norwich Theatre Royal from 28 to 31 October, a hip-hop, funk and soul musical about Sylvia Pankhurst. Most of us know the name from the Suffragettes, but this isn't about the movement as a whole; it's about the rebellious middle child of Emmeline Pankhurst, who started her own revolution for the forgotten — working women, the impoverished and the silenced — while her mother and sister fought for women's suffrage.

It's not a new show. It first appeared at the Old Vic in 2018 as a limited workshop season before returning as a full-length production, and it picked up the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, with nominations for Best New Musical and Best Theatre Choreographer. This run is part of a limited UK tour, with the Royal Albert Hall as its finale. That's a bit of a full-circle moment: the Hall was known to the Suffragettes as a 'Temple of Liberty' and hosted nearly thirty suffrage events between 1908 and 1913, before later becoming the first venue to bar the movement.

The show doesn't stop at the suffrage years, either. It follows Sylvia into her later life as an anti-fascist and communist in Ethiopia, where she was granted a state funeral and the only foreign burial plot in front of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa. So it's as much about her whole life as it is about the struggle for the vote.

On stage, Sharon Rose plays Sylvia Pankhurst, with Beverley Knight as Emmeline Pankhurst and Naomi Katiyo also playing Sylvia. The book is by Kate Prince and Priya Parmar, the music by Josh Cohen and DJ Walde, and Kate Prince directed and choreographed the whole thing. Tickets start from £10.60, with performance prices from £19.08.