The women Victorian society chose to forget take centre stage in Urania: Dickens’ Home for Fallen Women, a new production by Louise Dearden, coming to Newcastle’s Assembly Rooms from Friday 13th to Sunday 15th November as part of Dickens Festival North.
Inspired by a little-known chapter in Charles Dickens’ life, the play explores the experiences of women labelled ‘fallen’ by a society quick to judge and slow to offer second chances. In 1847, Dickens joined forces with philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts to establish Urania Cottage, a home intended to reform women marginalised by society, including thieves, prostitutes and former prisoners.
Dickens personally interviewed the women who entered the home, documenting their experiences in a private case book. However, this document has never been found, leaving their individual stories largely beyond our reach.
Drawing on Dickens’ surviving correspondence and wider archival research, Louise uses this historical mystery as the starting point for a dramatic reimagining of two women whose lives could hardly be more different.
Ada, played by Louise herself, is fiery and streetwise, having learnt to survive on her own terms. Macy Stasiak plays Rose, a younger woman struggling to find her footing following her mother’s death. Both arrive at Urania hoping for a fresh start, but their pasts are not so easily left behind. As Ada is forced to confront the life she thought she had escaped, Rose arrives with a secret of her own. With Dickens offering them the opportunity to begin again, both women must decide what that future might look like.
Matt Howden takes on the role of Dickens, while Eilidh Talman plays Kitty. The cast also perform multiple roles throughout the production, directed by Jake Murray.
Rather than simply recounting Dickens’ charitable work, the production imagines what life at Urania Cottage might have been like for the women who lived there. With the original case book missing, their voices remain largely lost to history, leaving Louise to explore their experiences through fiction.
Blending historical research with imagined lives, Urania raises compelling questions about redemption, social judgement and personal freedom. Who gets to decide whether someone deserves a second chance? And what happens when the future on offer is not necessarily the one a person wants for themselves?
By bringing these forgotten women to the forefront, the production offers audiences an opportunity to reconsider a hidden chapter of Victorian history and reflect on how society continues to judge those seeking a fresh start.
Tickets, priced from £31.50 in advance, are available at theassemblyrooms.org.
