It’s 6:30 am, and you’ve just arrived at the Bryant & May match factory in the East End of London for a long fourteen-hour shift of dangerous, monotonous work, ending the day with measly wages of just 1 shilling and 9 pence per 100 boxes of matches you wrap. Not only this but ridiculous fines could be imposed on you, such as 6 pence for dropping a tray of matches or 5 pence for being late. You could even be fined for having dirty feet, which was quite possible considering many workers were too poor to afford shoes.
Commercialising Christmas: Regent Street lights
Charlotte Johnson and Alice Rigby look at central London’s Christmas lights from its conception in austere post-war Britain, to the clear commercial slant it has today.
On stage: the Country Wife and Julius Caesar
Polly Findlay’s production of The Country Wife at the Royal Exchange is a rampantly sexualised farce set in Seventeenth Century London. The play, so scandalised censors that it was not performed for 200 years; William Wycherley rips apart all decent behaviour in the comic romp. Young wits cuckold jealous husbands from start to finish. This Continue Reading
Team GB: 116 years in the making
Since the birth of the modern Olympics, Great Britain has played its role consistently in the movement. It has competed in every Summer Olympics since 1896 and is the only team to have won a gold medal in every single Summer Olympics. To add to these laurels, London is now the only city to have Continue Reading