PhD playwright commissioned to piece together Bolton’s LGBTQ history

The performances are part of the award-winning British Museum exhibition ‘Desire, Love, Identity’, which Bolton is hosting in its newly refurbished temporary exhibitions gallery.

The exhibition will feature one piece written by Stephen himself about the Eagle Street College, a group of local, working-class men who worshipped Walt Whitman’s poetry and visited him in America. 

The four other pieces are written by local writers he has commissioned, including Matt Cain, writer of the best-selling ‘The Madonna of Bolton’ and Abi Hynes who writes a piece about the cross-dressing Music Hall star Vesta Tilley.

Stephen said, “My PhD is all about playwriting from archive with a focus on men’s sexual and emotional relationships with each other in the past. This has been a fantastic opportunity to test my emerging methodology in a real-world setting, both for myself and in working with other writers.

"Bolton has some amazing LGBTQ histories and seeing them dramatised and performed in this way has really connected with people.”

Performances are running this Saturday (25th May) in the gallery at 11am, 12 noon, 2pm and 3pm and are all free. More information can be found here. 

Stephen is an award-winning playwright and has been working as Playwright in Residence at the People’s History Museum in Manchester since October and is the Artistic Director of Inkbrew Productions.

His full-length, professional play about the Eagle Street College, ‘The Adhesion of Love’, concludes its tour at the Bolton Socialist Club on 31st May. More information can be found here.