Ethel Mary Smyth, 1858-1944

As a composer, I began life with two gross blunders: I was born 50 years too soon, and of the wrong sex!

The cards put by kind fate into my hands were good health, persistence, fighting instinct, and, most important of all, a small, independent income. Then another lucky card turned up in a side pocket: after the War I took up the writing of memoirs as a pastime. Indeed, I'm sure I should have stopped by now, if my dear friend, Virginia Woolf, had not encouraged me to go on. She says she loves my honesty ...

It amuses me to think that someday after my death someone will very likely take me up as a stunt. And thus, someday, I may make friends with those I cannot get at in my lifetime.

Essentially Ethel -- a one-woman show by Gill Stoker

This 45-minute show offers an insight into the life of a talented and headstrong woman, born into the Victorian era, but a bold rebel against the Victorian stereotype of femininity. We meet Ethel Smyth towards the end of her life when, still full of energy and humour, she is attempting to sort through a box of 'junk'. Each item brings back memories of her colourful career as a composer, conductor, suffragette and writer. We hear of early battles with her father, her musical studies in Germany, the performance of her great choral work at the Albert Hall, her operas, her books, her contacts with Johannes Brahms, Thomas Beecham, the Empress Eugenie, Queen Victoria, George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf, and her two-year involvement with Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffrage movement which led to a stay in Holloway Prison following a great window-breaking campaign. Her thoughts on the rights of women are of lasting relevance today.

www.ethelsmyth.co.uk