00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Now there's
00:05 a fascinating new musical premiered in Brighton earlier this year, coming to Shoreham Wordfest
00:12 on October the 8th. The piece we're talking about is Idle Women and it's been brought
00:17 together by Phil Jones, to whom I'm speaking. Now the irony of course is Idle Women is the
00:22 title, but the women depicted were anything but idle, weren't they? Explain that one.
00:29 I think that's the first thing that caught my eye really, exactly. They were referred
00:34 to as idle women because they had badges with IW on the badge, which was Inland Waterways.
00:42 And what were they doing and when? Well, they were working on the canals as of
00:47 1942 onwards, as really sort of part of the war effort. There were a shortage of men working
00:53 the canals, many men had gone off to fight. And this was ensuring safe passage of whatever
00:59 was on the canals. Oh yeah, yes. I mean, canals were super
01:02 important in terms of particularly coal and other things up and down the country, using
01:09 the canal network that we still have. So they spotted it as a gap in the provision and stepped
01:19 forward to do that work. They were also, very interestingly, they were in the main middle
01:27 class women who were looking for adventure outside of Hearth and Home, as it were, which
01:33 I think makes an even more interesting story. So somehow Inland Waterways became Idle Women.
01:39 And these women, did they get the adventure, do you think? What was your impression of
01:43 what they got up to? Well, they did. There's a couple of really
01:48 good memoirs which tell of their, you know, just their day to day life was just exhausting
01:57 and full of locks and challenges, and they had to get food, communications. I mean, this
02:04 is, our play is a fictionalised drama based on that, with some, but everything that kind
02:12 of happened on there, we kind of knew happened. But we put it together in a way that we hope
02:17 will really grab the audience. That sounds great. And you had a really good
02:22 start at the Brighton Fringe this year. Yeah, no, we did. People really loved it. They're
02:27 great songs. It's kind of serious, but also very funny and very warm hearted, and I think
02:35 draws people in. Oh, that sounds brilliant. And so we've got
02:39 Shoreham now, but already you're starting to think about next year and what you can
02:42 do with it. Yes, yeah, no, indeed. We're looking at,
02:46 got some offers around the country, just working out how to do it practically, because there's
02:51 not a lot of money around, is there, really, for people buying tickets or for us to make
02:56 it happen. Brilliant. Well, good luck with that.
03:00 Lovely to speak to you, and I hope it goes brilliantly. Thank you.
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