Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing

<i>What you haven't realised is that I sew to aid my thought processes. Look - </i>needle <i>-</i> stab - stitch - thought. Needle - stab <i>-</i> stitch <i>-</i> thought. <i>So next time you see a woman demurely sewing a sampler be very very wary. God knows what she may be planning.</i><br/> <br/>Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was a social theorist who is often credited as being the first female sociologist. In <i>Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing</i> Shelagh Stephenson depicts the great writer in a period of convalescence living as an invalid by the sea in Tynemouth.<br/> <br/>Shut off from her usual society Harriet is visited by women of the locale; Impie a recent widow who is using her new-found marital freedom to paint murals on the ceilings of her family home; Beulah the daughter of a woman who'd been sold into slavery and escaped; and Jane the housemaid whose unfeted and unexpected gifts lift her out of domestic servitude and could help Harriet out of illness.<br/> <br/><i>Harriet Martineau</i> is a play about female self-reliance in a time of patriarchal dominance. Written by Shelagh Stephenson it premiered at Live Theatre Newcastle in winter 2016.