In the year 1903 (where the show Sylvia begins), the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester. The group also consisted of middle-class women, who felt pushed to take a less peaceful approach to gaining the vote than the suffragists, including making bombs and setting fire to buildings, heckling politicians, holding marches, chaining themselves to railings, attacking policemen and smashing windows to make their voices heard. They were often sent to prison and went on hunger strike. The more violent activists, of which the Pankhurst family were central, became known as suffragettes, a term originally coined by the Daily Mail to ridicule them.

Sylvia – A Musical Revolution follows the Pankhurst family taking these actions, fighting for women’s right to vote. It’s also about how this family becomes divided by their politics. The disagreements within their family about their approach to protest and who they should be fighting for. Mother Emmeline, like the majority of suffragettes, was trying to secure the vote for middle-class women first, while daughter Sylvia strongly believed that right should be extended to all women and men at the same time (working class men did not have the right to vote at this point).

So what was happening in Edinburgh at this time in history?

In 1867, the Edinburgh National Society for Women’s Suffrage was the first women’s suffrage society to be formed in Scotland and one of the first three suffrage societies to be established in the UK. This put Edinburgh at the centre of the movement’s emergence in the country. Find out more about the key figures in Scotland’s suffrage movement.

There were also branches of the WSPU (Emmeline Pankhurst’s organisation) active in Scotland. In 1909 they organised ‘The Great Procession and Women’s Demonstration’ along Princes Street, which drew crowds 10 people deep. Emmeline Pankhurst was a keynote speaker at the event.

This march was a ‘grand historical pageant’ for which some women dressed up as historical Scottish female figures, others donned the white, violet and green colours of the WSPU and others dressed in graduate robes or their professions attire. The march was supposed to celebrate the achievements of women so far and to persuade fellow Scots that women deserved the right to vote. Women from all over Scotland and from all occupations and social classes attended.

Hopes were high following this march and in Westminster it was looking likely that Prime Minister Asquith would pass the Conciliation Bill granting some women the right to vote. Unfortunately, this was backtracked and the suffragettes’ outrage was met with increasingly intense and violent confrontations with the police. As a result, Scottish suffragettes also equipped themselves with jiu jitsu skills for self-defence (which you’ll learn more about in the start of Act 2!).

Sylvia is an electrifying, powerful production about family relationships, freedom of speech and the right to protest and vote. If you want to see this “storm of a show” (The Guardian) brought to life, get your tickets for the Festival Theatre from 13 – 17 Oct 2026.

Want to dig deeper into the real life characters, policies and events in the Sylvia musical? Or looking for activities for the classroom? Check out the Education pack.