Cat And Mouse play about Perth suffragettes takes to stage in Edinburgh

A play telling the story of four suffragette hunger strikers, held in Perth Prison in 1914, will take to the stage in Edinburgh.

Written by Ajay Close, former writer-in-residence of the Fair City, Cat And Mouse is a work of fiction that draws on the experiences of real women.

Frances Gordon, Maude Edwards, Fanny Parker and Arabella Scott had been jailed for attacks on property and during their five-week imprisonment thousands of women marched in support of them.

While her fellow campaigners lacked the physical constitution to endure the doctor’s regimen for long, Arabella Scott was fed by stomach tube, morning and evening, for the whole five weeks.

She spent many hours in conversation with the man she called her “torturer” prison medical officer Dr Hugh Ferguson Watson, and their complex, ambivalent relationship lies at the heart of the play.

A rehearsed reading of the play took place at the Soutar Theatre in Perth last year and this latest adaptation is directed by Muriel Romanes and produced by Perth and Kinross Council Arts Development Service.

It will be staged at the Royal Lyceum Theatre on Tuesday from 6pm.