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(W) Sophie Rickard, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (A) Scarlett Rickard

When the Lancashire cotton mill that employs them burns to the ground, sisters Rachel and Hester Martin are each forced to find their own way to survive in the harsh realities of prewar industrial Britain. The contrasting paths they take in their quest for domestic autonomy form a subtly strident allegory of the all-but-insurmountable barriers of class and gender that then enslaved half the population. Part compelling narrative epic, part fiery Marxist-feminist polemic, this faithful, sumptuous, and revelatory adaptation by the award-winning Rickard Sisters reclaims a lost classic by holding it up as a mirror to our own hard times, and as a gloriously flaming beacon to future communities to offer strength, hope, and dignity.