Why I wrote a play about Jennie Lee

Ahead of the premiere of his play about the Scottish founder of The Open University, Jennie Lee, playwright Matthew Knights shares why he was inspired to write the play and bring it to Fife.

Jennie Lee was one of the first female MP’s when she was elected in 1929 at the age of just 24. She later went on to become the first ever Minister for the Arts and was the driving force behind the establishment of The Open University in the 1960’s.

She was born in Lochgelly in Fife, a town with a history of coal mining. But how is her memory kept alive there today?

I don’t know if I was expecting a statue, a mural or even a museum, but when I first visited Lochgelly in 2018 the only reference to her I could find was the fact the local library is named after her: the ‘Jennie Lee Library’ in Lochgelly Centre.

As a writer with a passion for social history I thought there should be far more noise being made about Jennie Lee as a political trailblazer. As a playwright, I saw a great opportunity to present a play in the area where she was born, exploring and sharing the story with the people who live there today. So, I started writing one!

There are always of course several ways to tell a story and I believe you have to focus on what means the most to you personally. For me I think this is to do with Jennie Lee’s concern for social justice throughout her life.

Quite early in the process of writing the play, I had the idea that I wanted to have an imaginary encounter between two Jennie’s, the radical firebrand of her youth growing up in the Fife coalfields and the later Minister in Harold’s Wilson’s mid 1960’s government.

I was particularly inspired by Jennie’s belief that aspects of life like learning, art and culture were as important as the essentials like a job and a roof over your head."

Some of the other figures who influenced her life also appear in the play, notably of course her husband Nye Bevan, founder of the NHS. I was fascinated by what they achieved together and separately. I was particularly inspired by Jennie’s belief that the spiritual or non-material aspects of life like learning, art and culture were as important as the essentials like a job and a roof over your head.

I am currently enjoying being resident with a whole company of theatre makers in Lochgelly Centre over October and November 2024 whilst we produce the play.

We are excited to be walking the very same streets that Jennie Lee walked all those years ago and to be performing at OnFife venues in Lochgelly and Dunfermline.

We are pleased to be working in partnership with The Open University in Scotland who are supporting the delivery of Jennie Lee themed creative writing workshops in the Fife area, encouraging local people to explore some of the themes of Jennie’s life and what her legacy means to them.

We hope to bring people from Lochgelly and the surrounding areas together to explore and celebrate this amazing woman, whom I think shows us today what ordinary people are capable of given the opportunities to thrive. She was one of those who believed in people, and we could do with more of her kind in future.

We hope to have the opportunity to tour the play more widely and of course, continue the conversations we have been having in Fife with many others around Scotland.

17 October 2024