Sara Wesker was a British Trade Union leader at a time when many women didn’t work, most women couldn’t vote, and many women aspired only to get married and live happily after. Having grown up in an east London tenement, principally housing Jewish families in squalid conditions, Sara started working in a garment factory. On realising that the men earned more per pair of trousers than their female colleagues, Sara determined to make a difference. She led some of her colleagues in a strike and secured an increase to their pay.
Chopped Liver and Unions offers an insight into Sara’s remarkable life. In subsequent jobs, she continued her activist role, eliciting some neat observations from writer J. J. Lepink about the extent to which a woman orchestrating these actions is seen as a troublemaker where a man is seen as a hero. We learn about her burgeoning romance with fellow trade unionist Mick Mindel, and about the role that strike songs played for the women strikers who couldn’t afford to finance their protest any other way.
This is a neat production, sparingly presented, featuring Lottie Walker as Sarah with brisk musical accompaniment provided by James Hall. She’s an engaging performer, beautifully arch in her questioning of societal norms. The script wears the extensive research that informed it lightly – you never feel that you’re in a history lesson but (unless you already know loads about the Jewish women who worked in the London garment trade in the 1920s and ’30s) the net result is just the same. Walker’s performance is sometimes a little halting, which may be intentional but does slightly interfere with the authenticity and the production might be enhanced by a bit more movement. But otherwise, this is a funny, feisty and informative forty-five minute show.
Chopped Liver and Unions runs until Sat 26 Aug 2023 at theSpace on the Mile – Space2 at 13:10