Today we’ll be looking at Robert Tressell (or Noonan or Croker)’s book The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, likely the first novel by a working class writer and who has been called the man who made a million socialists. Our guests are Scarlett and Sophie Rickard and they have a particular intimacy with the novel, as they have transformed it to suit our own times as a graphic novel.
Scarlett is an illustrator and graphic artist living in Kent. Sophie is a writer and child counsellor living in Cheshire. Despite living hundreds of miles apart they work closely on every stage of their projects — and have a lot of fun doing it. Their astounding graphic novel version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is available in all good bookshops and from their website at https://rickardsisters.com
Intro and Outro music: 'Jerusalem' by Paul Robeson (1939); Lyrics, William Blake (1804); Composed, Hubert Parry (1916); Contributor, Internet Archive.
Interval music: 'Street Gang' by Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance from the album Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance (1975), written by (Lane, O'lochlainn, Steve Simpson.
Find out more
wea.org.uk
eastmarshunited.org