 Dr Marie Stopes transformed how we think about sex. This first play about her marks 100 years from the publication of Married Love, selected by Melvyn Bragg as one of ‘12 Books that Changed the World’.
The isolated communities of the Isle of Portland on the Dorset coast are shocked to discover the notorious sex campaigner Marie Stopes has bought the Higher Lighthouse. She hopes it will be her refuge from the storms battering her on the mainland. A collision of cultures is inevitable. How will she change the Islanders’ ways of thinking & how will she be changed by Portland? ( watch the Authors Description - video) well worth it).
One of the 20th Century’s most controversial women, Marie Stopes strong views provided graphic understanding of pleasure & consequence of sex. Vilified then by the Catholic Church, she still provokes today. But apart from her work, who was the real Marie Stopes? Escaping the Storm finds Stopes on the Isle of Portland; writing, exploring fossil forests, skinny-dipping, & interacting with the locals. Fascinating & formidable - Marie Stopes’ complex private world is as controversial as her public one.
An ensemble of four performers - with projected image, Stope’s favourite music; and a few surprises - give life to this pacey, thought-provoking play. The playwright & director Peter John Cooper finds humour and presses all the right buttons revealing the good, the bad, & down-right ugly. Presenting theatre of debate.
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