About the play...
The Clapham Girls’ War tells the story of how World War One changed the lives of many of the women of Hull.
Based on factual events, the new drama looks at the war on the Home Front through the eyes of five fictional characters, who work at the celebrated Madame Clapham’s dress emporium in Kingston Square (now The Kingston Theatre Hotel).
They experience the bombings, the shortages and deprivation as they see their menfolk taken away to the war abroad.
They decide that making pretty things in voile and crepe-de-chine and lace, while their men are crawling through mud and barbed wire on the Western Front, is a waste of a war.
So they join the war effort, each in her different way.
As the story unfolds we learn about their hopes and aspirations as women of their time – a period when women did not yet have the vote and had few rights in the workplace or at home.
As the women’s story unfolds we learn what the war is doing to their menfolk who are fighting on the Western Front with The Hull Pals Company of the East Yorks. regiment.
With songs of the period and WW1 poetry, as well as new and original drama, The Clapham Girls’ War tells a heart-warming and poignant tale of this volatile period in Hull’s history.