In an interview, the National's director Nicholas Hytner stated "[Lenkiewicz's] new play ... will take its place in the Olivier rep alongside work by Shaw, Middleton and Tony Harrison.
"[2] The play is set during British women's struggle for the vote in the early 20th century, beginning with a suffragette trying to pin a suffragette sash on the kings horse at the Derby and ending with the outbreak of World War I.
It is centred on a love-affair between two fictional suffragettes, one upper-class called Lady Celia Cain (played in the premiere by Lesley Manville) and the other working-class called Eve Douglas (played in the premiere by Jemima Rooper).
In a National Theatre programme note, Lenkiewicz has written "I used to work at the National Film Theatre as an usherette and on my breaks I'd often go out to the river with a cup of tea and scour the bookstalls under Waterloo Bridge.
It was a battered copy and cost a tenner...and from devouring that book came my urge to write about the period and a desire to put those women into the foreground once more; their bravery and brilliance.