"Scuttlers" is a new play that recently had a well-reviewed premiere at Manchester's Royal Exchange. ("...opening a soot-smeared window into the past, as well as holding up a cracked mirror to our present." The Times) The Scuttlers were Manchester's original street gangs that grew up in the gruesome conditions of the factories and mills of the Industrial Revolution. It is a striking piece of drama which highlights the lack of ambition and bravado-covered insecurity of young people with few options and at the mercy of employers maximising profit in what seemed to be a "zero-hours contract" situation. The parallels with modern young people in the inner-city were clear to anyone with any knowledge of that context, but just in case, a clever twist at the end gives a clear reminder that the legacy of those oppressive times lives on. Watch out for future productions of "Scuttlers" and be ready to be moved and challenged.

"It's 1885 and the streets of Manchester are crackling with energy, youth and violence. As workers pour into Ancoats to power the Industrial Revolution, 50.000 people are crammed into one square mile. The mills rumble thunderously day and night. The air is thick with smoke. Life is lived large and lived on the street. This is the world's very first industrial suburb and the young mill workers who are the living cogs in its machines form the very first urban gangs, fighting over their territory with belts, fists and knives. Invisible in history their lives, deaths, loves, lusts and defiant energy tell stories that will repeat and repeat over the decades that follow. Inspired by the Manchester riots of 2011 and the stories of all the Manchester gangs between the nineteenth century and today Rona Munro's new play smashes the nineteenth century against a twenty first century sensibility to bring the young Scuttlers back to vivid, potent life."  From the Royal Exchange publicity.

Paul Keeble

As members of the British ‘Movement for Justice and Reconciliation’ we want to state publicly our alignment with those in America who are protesting at the injustices in the American judicial system that fails to put on trial the police officers responsible for choking to death a black American citizen.
In Britain we see the roots of the same insensitivity and gross injustice in the failure to recognise the legacy of slavery that is choking the life out of inner-city communities of institutionalised unemployment, inequality and injustice.
We want to warn the British Government that the failure to recognise the legacy of slavery – from both colonial and industrial exploitation – that exists in our nation will lead to similar unrest on our city streets as is being witnessed today in the USA. It is only a matter of time before further civil unrest is seen in British cities due to the continuing failure to recognise the monstrous injustice of the past that still affects large sectors of our population today.
We call upon the Government urgently to begin a process of investigation of what has hitherto been regarded as a ‘no go’ area in the social fabric of this nation. Community leaders are at present willing to talk and to outline areas of social action that could alleviate some of the tensions that are building up in our inner-city areas today. The door is still open for talking, but the time it remains open may be limited.