Programme extract for Her Naked Skin
'Emily Wilding Davison is the most famous suffragette of all. Her deathly dash onto the race course at Epsom on Derby Day, 4th June 1913, guaranteed her place in history. Captured on 20 feet of silver nitrate, her blurred, jerky, silent movements have been playing ever since: an essential moment in the struggle for women’s liberation. She was wearing a suffragette flag pinned to the lining of her jacket. Although her family and friends were shocked by her suicidal protest, they can hardly have been surprised. Three years of suffragette militancy had taken their toll on her; even sympathetic publishers refused to do anything with her memoirs of her time in Strangeways and Holloway prisons. Davison had a total disregard for her individual status within the struggle. She threw iron balls labelled ‘Bomb’ through windows; regularly set fire to pillar-boxes; barricaded herself in her prison cell and had to be flushed out with water-cannon; and was a committed hunger-striker. “Deeds not Words” is inscribed on her gravestone.'
(c) Diane Atkinson
The rest of Diane Atkinson's piece, 'Deeds not Words', about the suffragettes, along with a brief history of the movement and testimonies of some of those who took part; a who's who of the cast and creative team; and images from rehearsals and the period, are available in the programme for Her Naked Skin – on sale at £3 from ushers, bars, the Olivier bookstall and the main Bookshop in the entrance foyer.
Programme sales help support the work of the National Theatre.
