This unique copy of Greenwood's only one-act play, the shocking The Practised Hand which concerned the killing of an elderly lodger by his land-lady and accomplices so they could cash in his life insurance, has been lost since 1935. It recently came to light in an auction in Cornwall of some items from Arthur Wragg's… Continue reading New Article – Greenwood’s Personal Acting Copy of The Practised Hand, with his rehearsal notes and two character sketches by Arthur Wragg (1935)
Blog Posts
New Article – Underneath the Lamp-post: Arthur Wragg’s Incomplete Sketch for a New Walter Greenwood Dust-wrapper (1930? 1940s?)
In mid-February 2025 a Cornish auction house put on a sale of works from the studio of Wragg and Greenwood's friend and fellow artist Frederick Roberts Johnson. These included quite a large number of items which had come in turn by some means from Arthur Wragg's Polperro studio. I was able to buy through an… Continue reading New Article – Underneath the Lamp-post: Arthur Wragg’s Incomplete Sketch for a New Walter Greenwood Dust-wrapper (1930? 1940s?)
New Article: ‘Call the Handywoman’: Birth and Death in Hanky Park (1933-1937)
This article focuses on Mrs Bull, the 'handywoman' who for a fee attends women in childbirth and also lays out the dead in the world of Hanky Park, despite the fact that it was by the 1930s illegal for her to do the first without being a qualified midwife. However, it will also look at… Continue reading New Article: ‘Call the Handywoman’: Birth and Death in Hanky Park (1933-1937)
New Article! Love on the Dole: the Cartoons (February 1935)
Larry Meath and Hanky Park as drawn by the cartoonist Tom Titt for the Tatler in February 1935 Believe it or not, there really were a set of reviews of the play of Love on the Dole which included cartoon or caricature responses to the play by cartoonists who went to see the play together… Continue reading New Article! Love on the Dole: the Cartoons (February 1935)
More Music! Revised version of ‘Two Songs, Two Hymns and a March in the Play of Love on the Dole’.
I first published this article about the use of music and song in the 1935 play adaptation of Love on the Dole at the end of January 2024. However, recently looking again at the play I realised that the two printed editions (one by Jonathan Cape, one by Samuel French) have a further hymn in… Continue reading More Music! Revised version of ‘Two Songs, Two Hymns and a March in the Play of Love on the Dole’.
Walter Greenwood: Not Just Love on the Dole 