At the moment, the material only stretches to 12 minutes. But – after a standing ovation at the London Palladium – producers of a fledgling hip-hop musical about the suffragettes are hopeful that it could be a “British Hamilton”.
Last week, singers and musicians performed songs from a planned musical called Suffrageddon at a Guardian Live-supported evening of the popular podcast The Guilty Feminist.
“It was the most spontaneous standing ovation I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Deborah Frances-White, the comedian and creator of The Guilty Feminist. “They were the talk of the night, people were raving about it and asking how they could get involved – so I really feel like it is going to go somewhere.”
Frances-White has, unapologetically, been inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: the Musical, which has taken the story of America’s founding fathers to tell the story of America now.
Money from the Guilty Feminist has been used to pay writers and performers for early development of Suffrageddon and a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise £10,000 has been launched.
The idea is to hand the narrative of the suffragettes to women of colour, said Frances-White, to “let them retell the story, let them reframe the story and make the story relevant to now”.
The music has been written by Rebecca Phillips and Mark Hodge, with lyrics by them and performers including Roxxxan, Oracy Chambers, Aminita Francis and Koko Brown.
Roxxxan plays Emmeline Pankhurst and sings: “Looked down by neighbours / Labelled as traitors and shamed as beasts / We protested with peace / We protested with speech / But we’re still beaten streets / And hit by police.”
Phillips, a singer, songwriter and vocal coach, said developing the early material had been a happily collaborative project. “It has been amazing to work with so many strong, creative, wonderful women. It was ego-free and amazing.”
Frances-White said the hope is that a longer piece is performed at the next Guilty Feminist evening at the Palladium in May and by the end of the year there will be a concept album and stage show.
In the meantime, she said: “If anyone is having a suffragette celebration and they want to bring us in ... I genuinely do believe that when people hear the 12 minutes, they will say I would pay for that to be an album.”
She said hip-hop was the perfect genre to tell the story of the suffragettes. Many women who have contacted her talk about how they love the swagger of hip-hop, but not some of its lyrics or values. “They love the feeling of rebellion, the feeling of free speech ... it is an empowering sound.”
Frances-White said she was a huge fan and admirer of Hamilton and said it was a direct influence but the new show had a different feel, “because it is women, because it is Britain, because it is suffragettes. The songs are getting stuck in my head in the same way, I think it is because it is about revolution. I really hope if Lin-Manuel Miranda hears it he will be flattered”.
