Sylvia vs. the Fascists

Touring in support of International Women's Day, this short play about Sylvia Pankhurst by Rob Johnston at our local Theatr Gwaun provided a magnetic one-woman performance by Emma Laidlaw, playing not only Sylvia but Winston Churchill, Mussolini, Lenin and Oswald Mosley.

We hosted the writer/director, his wife and the actor, who had come all the way from Manchester for a very small house (unfortunately the date conincided with other events in town), which gave me the opportunity to reveal that I once met Sylvia Pankhurst's son Richard. 

It was in 2006 when I repatriated an antique Ethiopian painting that had been in the family for many years. Richard spent much of his life in Ethiopia, and founded the Institute for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He led a campaign to retrieve the many precious items that had been plundered from that country.

Extra: me and Richard Pankhurst