Monday 3rd April, 7.30pm
No Petticoats Here: Live Tour
The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham
New Forest based singer, musician and composer Louise Jordan tours with her latest project ‘No Petticoats Here’ this spring and she will perform at the Crescent Theatre on Monday 3rd April.
‘No Petticoats Here’ tells the real life stories of varied and remarkable women of the Great War through song and was inspired by the story of Dorothy Lawrence, an orphan whose guardian lived in Salisbury Cathedral Close. Dorothy dressed as a soldier in order to visit the Western Front and pursue her journalistic ambitions. Louise quickly became fascinated by the stories of female ambulance drivers, scientists, footballers and spies.
No Petticoats Here is the culmination of twelve months of research that has taken Louise to the battlefields of the Somme, the Belgian frontline at Pervijse and to countless museums and historic research centres. Through contact with the relatives and biographers of some of these extraordinary women Louise has been able to add greater depth and detail to their stories bringing to life their courage and compassion.
Now a familiar face on the acoustic scene, Louise Jordan has placed her classical music background and her five years’ experience of touring arts centres, theatres, folk clubs and festivals in the UK and Europe alongside her early career as a secondary school history teacher to produce No Petticoats Here.
The First World War too often remembers women as the mourners of the fallen, as frugal housewives ‘making do’ or angelic nurses caring patiently for the men who returned from the Front Line. Through No Petticoats Here I remember some of the many women whose stories do not fit conveniently into boxes and whose experiences are both astonishing and relatable one hundred years on.
From the driving, rhythmic piano of ‘Queen of Spies’ which captures the story of the charming and bold Frenchwoman Louise de Bettignies, to the intensely personal ‘Mairi’ about the disintegration of a devoted friendship, this is an album as musically diverse as the women’s stories it tells. ‘Ripple and Flow’ captures Hertha Ayrton’s patient pursuit of change through her scientific achievements, the elegant interweaving clarinet and piano mirroring the ebb and flow of the water motions she studied. By contrast the resolute march of the army of women workers ‘Toil, Women, Toil’ is accompanied by a single snare drum.
The Crescent Theatre is situated at 40A Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5JG and Louise will perform there on Monday 3rd April 2017 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £10.50 and are available from the venue. Tickets are available by from the Box Office 0121 643 5858 and online where further information is also available www.crescent-theatre.co.uk.
For further information please contact Louise Jordan 07980 374971 music@louisejordan.co.uk or visit Louise’s websites www.nopetticoatshere.co.uk and www.louisejordan.co.uk.
Images attached are from Louise Jordan’s album artwork designed by Tim Dench at Azania Ltd. The portrait painting was drawn by James Dale. Copyright of all images belongs to Azania Ltd.