CELEBRATING History’s Forgotten Women - a new play from Lisa Holdsworth arrives at Helmsley Arts Centre next week.

Yorkshire theatre-makers team up with screenwriter Lisa Holdsworth to tour UNSUNG, a new piece of feminist theatre charting the untold stories of the women who made – or ought to have made – British history.

UNSUNG explores the untold stories of Ada Lovelace, Sophia Jex-Blake, Lilian Bailey and Andrea Dunbar, asking why they, and hundreds like them, have been relegated to the footnotes of history. The show is supported by Arts Council England and the Fenton Arts Trust, and arrives at Helmsley Arts Centre on Saturday 23 March as part of a national tour to include Square Chapel Arts Centre, Harrogate Theatre, Brewery Arts Centre and the King’s Head Theatre in London.

The development of Unsung began when a group of female theatre-makers from Leeds, collectively disgruntled with the tangible lack of engaging, multi-faceted female roles in the theatrical canon, came together to make a new show. They formed a company, Unsung Collective, which in collaboration with award-winning writer Lisa has created Unsung.

Elvi Piper, Unsung’s Director said: ‘”We wanted to make something that interrogated in a lively and relatable way the underrepresentation of women in history, the theatre, and society at large.”

Unsung questions why figures such as Lilian Bader, one of the first women of colour to serve in the British Armed Forces, and Ada Lovelace, whose visionary observations about the potential applications of the Analytical Engine foreshadowed modern day computer coding, are so absent from what we, as a nation, are taught of our history.

The show’s Producer, Alice Barber, adds: ‘Unsung is neither a history lesson, nor a historical drama, but an exciting piece of new writing that explores with immediacy the very modern struggles of these women.”

The stories of both Lilian and Andrea have a strong connection to Yorkshire, where the show has been developed.

Lisa said: “It was so important to us that along with representing a diversity of disciplines and backgrounds in the characters, we celebrated the achievements of Yorkshire-women in particular.” perspectives that govern the way in which women are regarded today.”

Tickets and more information available online at www.helmsleyarts.co.uk or from the Box Office on 01439 771700.