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Riot Act, Central Library, Manchester
Excellent dramatisation of the revolutionary upsurge in the aftermath of Peterloo
Hard lesson: The Riot Act

1842 was a year of great hardship for workers across the north-west of England.

High bread prices, reduced wages and the dismissal of calls for universal male suffrage by Chartists led to strikes and disturbances in the summer.

In this new play, writer Rob Johnston has chosen events in Preston to tell the story of workers and mill owners as the political situation reaches boiling point, with Jake Talbot and Christopher Ward playing both the mill owners and the weavers.

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