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| Adam ffoulkes Roberts and Marjorie Urquhart in When we are married (1998) |
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Harold Brighouse (1882-1958) and Hobson’s Choice The saying “Hobson’s Choice” is proverbial, having passed into common usage from the practices of one Thomas Hobson, a Cambridge livery stables owner. At his stable the customers had no choice of horse but the next one available, and hence no choice at all. The play was written by Harold Brighouse in 1916, apparently inspired by the sight of lines of servicemen on their way to be slaughtered on the battlefields of France. An appalled Brighouse wanted to write a play where convention was overturned and people with no choice took control over their own lives. Although he was a popular playwright and novelist during his lifetime, the reputation of Harold Brighouse today rests almost entirely on his play Hobson’s Choice. Brighouse was born in Eccles near Salford on 26 July 1882. His mother was a teacher and his father was in the cotton business. Despite gaining a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School, Harold was not a keen student and at seventeen he left school to start work in the textile industry. The play is set in Salford, Lancashire, in 1880. A thriving shoe and boot shop is owned by the drunken and pompous Henry Horatio Hobson. The timid but talented Willie Mossop is a gifted shoemaker, and Hobson’s eldest and very efficient daughter, Maggie, runs the business. Her father, drinking away the profits, is confident that things will continue as they have always done. However, Maggie has other ideas and sets about changing her – and Willie’s – life completely. To do so she has to overturn every convention and obligation that Edwardian society expected from a woman. Script From Project Gutenberg • PDF format – 319Kb • RTF format (for Word) – 249Kb Full programme of play-readings, January-March 2004 • Tagora’s calendar |