THE Library Theatre's heading 'Home'.
This is the slightly controversial name of its new venue, shared with Cornerhouse and sited between Deansgate-Castlefield and Oxford Road Stations, where building has recently started. The plans look great.
In the meantime though the theatre again takes over a non-theatre venue, hoping to keep it a secret, and focuses on home-grown events of great national and international importance
The month-long production opens in early June in a location which is still largely secret, and we’re asked to keep it that way.
If we think of ‘large popular movements which changed the world’ it's difficult to find one in which Manchester hasn't played its part: universal suffrage, women's emancipation, the eradication of slavery, self-governance for former colonies, even vegetarianism. Then there’s dancing for hours to repetitive beats after consuming varying qualities and quantities of drugs.
Do the first and the last of these fit together? Can they provide the foundation of an entertaining, thought-provoking piece of theatre?
The Library Theatre is brave enough to try. Manchester Sound: The Massacre will bring together participants from the Peterloo Massacre 1819 and from Manchester’s music scene in 1989.
Apart from a certain rebelliousness and of course location, the Hacienda’s just a stone’s throw away from St Peter’s Fields, is there anything to link the two?
Manchester Sound: The Massacre
Opinions are divided. Recognising this, the Library Theatre’s recent ‘symposium’ brought together an expert on each event, the core creative team and then pulled in as chair DJ and writer Dave Haslam, with a foot in both camps.
Manchester Sound’s writer Polly Wiseman whose ‘large popular movements which changed the world’ phrase I quoted seems to think there’s a strong link. Director Paul Jepson seems less sure and wants also to look at the differences. For a sizeable part of the audience the differences were clear, the director’s suggestion that many Mancunians didn’t know their history was insistently denied, and the world of the Hacienda could have been a foreign land. For others the challenge to authority is a unifying factor.
The month-long production opens in early June in a location which is still largely secret, and we’re asked to keep it that way.
Manchester Sound: The Massacre Cast
Just in case the director was correct: The Peterloo Massacre took place in 1819 on St Peter’s Fields, near what is now Manchester Central. Thousands of ordinary people gathered to hear Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt speak in a campaign for wider enfranchisement; Manchester did not even have any MPs at the time. The authorities panicked and sent in armed men on horseback to arrest the speakers. In the ensuing panic an estimated 18 people were killed and a further 600 injured, many seriously. Named ironically after the Battle of Waterloo, the Peterloo Massacre today symbolises the sacrifices made in the fight for democracy and plays an important part in Manchester’s image of itself as a city which takes the world forward.
It will be interesting to see how intricately the creative team can link those events to rave culture.
The Library Theatre’s enthralling site specific work, Hard Times and Manchester Lines, has been a positive force during its period without a permanent home. Manchester Sound: The Massacre may well be another one to remember.
Saturday 8 June - Saturday 6 July (performances: Mon-Thu 7.30pm; Fri/Sat 6pm, 9pm) at a secret location in Manchester city centre. There will be a bar – no need to bring your own drinks.
Tickets cost £26, £24, £22 and £18. Call the box office on 0161 200 1500 or click here for tickets.
