This International Women’s Day, the Museum of London is pleased to share the launch of an original video series created in collaboration with some of the funniest women in comedy.
The five-part series will feature five London based comedians; Samantha Baines, Jenny Bede, Jen Ives, Thanyia Moore and Leila Navabi. Each have created their own original short comedic pieces inspired by different objects chosen by them from the museum’s unparalleled women’s history archives, part of the permanent London Collection.
Items chosen include:
- A recruitment letter from Sainsbury’s seeking female staff to work in their shops during WWI
- A postcard featuring the dogs of Suffragette leader and drum major of the WSPU drum and fife band, Mary Leigh
- Commemorative toilet roll created by First 100 Years to celebrate the history of women in the legal profession since 1919, when the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act made it illegal to ban people from jobs based on their sex
- A Henry Grant photograph of a female bus conductor from the mid-1970s, which is the first time London Underground officially employed women as bus drivers
- A photograph of Suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth who composed the well-known song ‘The March of the Women’, which was frequently heard throughout the Votes for Women campaign
The video series blends the past with modern London voices to tell the story of London and Londoners in a new and innovative way; a key objective for the Museum of London as it looks ahead to its new home opening in West Smithfield in the coming years.
