Her Naked Skin

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. One large paperback volume Shoulder to Shoulder cried out to me to be bought. It was by Midge Mackenzie and was a documentary account of the suffragettes. 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."[3]

Most of the critical reaction to the premiere was good, managing four stars in the Evening Standard, Guardian, Independent and Time Out and three in the Times,[4][5][6][7][8] though the critic from The Times criticised what he saw as the caricaturing of the male characters.[9] Some critics also felt the lesbian love affair was concentrated on at the expense of the historical background,[10][11][12] though some have argued against such as criticism[13]