Guest Blog: EDINBURGH 2024: Charlotte Walker on CHOPPED LIVER AND UNIONS

Charlotte Walker guest blogs for BroadwayWorld about bringing Chopped Liver and Unions to the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

I’ve been told it’s a good thing to bring a show to the Fringe more than once. I’ve also been told it’s a bad idea and only new work is of interest.  Who knows what works best? Who cares? It’s the Fringe – anything can happen!

This year, though, although there was initial hesitancy to do so, I’m really pleased we’re bringing Chopped Liver and Unions back for a second year. We’re telling a story that needs to be told and needs to be told now. Last year, we were relevant because there was so much industrial action happening. The people were disgruntled with their governments worldwide and, as our trade union leader Sara Wesker says in the play, “We could feel it in the air” – change was coming. This year, the change is tangible but the uncertainty lingers.

Chopped Liver and Unions, set in the first half of the 20th century, is not just the story of one woman - it is the story of an entire generation of working-class people who had to work or fight for everything they had and sometimes had to fight to work. My own father was a docker in London’s Royal Docks - fist fights to secure a shift were not uncommon in an environment where there was no guarantee of work every day.

During the “between the wars” years of the 1920s and 30s there was a financial crisis, a shortage of jobs, inadequate housing for the working class and unhealthy, unethical working environments. The global political situation was unsettled, to say the least, hence an enormous amount of migration, and a small but very vocal and highly dangerous minority was intent on blaming their own bad fortune on anyone they perceived as “different.” Sound familiar?

Telling Sara’s story gives us a warning from history, but it also provides an entertaining hour peppered with the self-deprecating humour of a generation and social group who could literally not afford to take themselves seriously.  

Sara is an inspiration. She led strikes, sang on picket lines to raise money when there was no union representation and then formed her own union to protect her fellow workers so that they’d never need to sing for their suppers again. She fought the fascists at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 and in the rent strikes of the 1950s she fought the landlords.  

Since we started with this show I’ve met some wonderful people with similar lived experiences to Sara. Whether we’ve played Devon, London or New York, at every performance someone has had a story to share. Someone at one of our NYC shows said, “I defy you not to get riled up”. I liked that. Sara would also like that - it’s exactly the reaction she wanted. So I hope to get our Fringe audience fired up and ready to take on the world – or at least the Royal Mile!  

Chopped Liver and Unions runs from 2 to 24 August (no performances on 11 and 18 August) at Paradise in Augustines - The Studio at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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