User reviews

This series is one of my favorites. It dramatizes the life of the Pankhurst family who led the movement for the woman's right to vote in England. Their cause was a just one, and they finally succeed after the first world war. The acting is wonderful. TOP RATE. What is very interesting, too, is the observation that though their cause was very important, there was an undercurrent of rivalry within an autocratic leadership of the movement. Nevertheless, the leaders ruled, rather like a dictatorship which, at times, negated humane consideration. The willingness to suffer by some of these woman for the right to vote and participate in society is a hallmark in history. I HOPE TO SEE THIS BROUGHT TO DVD.

This series really impacted me as a young girl. At 13 years old it was an amazing program that shed so much light on what was experienced by the brave women before me. I was riveted and would really like my girls to see what the women before them went through especially today when we have lost sight of the womens movement in this day of bare bellies and shaking rear ends! The young women of today do not seem to realize what their sisters before them went through just to get the vote and how many years afterward that women continued to fight for equality!!! The acting was exceptional and I really agree this is one of the best series of all time. I see that Brideshead Revisited in on DVD why not this one!!

I watched this avidly when it was broadcast in the 1970s. Why, I wonder, has this excellent series been allowed to gather dust? It had brilliant acting and was both informative and moving. The song, The March of the Women, always moves me to tears.

I have a nasty suspicion that it's to do with sexism at the BBC. It's about women, and by women, and deals with women as people, not decorative fluff. Given programming costs, I would have thought they'd welcome the chance to air all those well-made episodes at no cost. And a re-broadcast would stimulate DVD sales, assuming they ever made the effort to put it out in DVD format.

Of course, if the BBC felt like it, there is a great deal of gold that could be mined on the subject of the struggle for women's rights: the fight for married women's property rights; the fight for equal rights in marriage and divorce; the fights for education against medical advice that it would bring on brain fever or interfere with women's reproductive capabilities; the fights for admission to various professions.

When the actress Georgia Brown accused the BBC of not providing worthwhile roles for women she was challenged to provide a format which did. The result was this epic telling of the story of women's struggle to earn the right to vote.

With a superb cast, excellent writing and top notch production the BBC produced a series which should stand alongside other high points from the 1970's such as 'I, Claudius' and 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. For some reason it is neglected and I seem to remember it was undervalued on its first transmission.

Perhaps there are those who don't care to be reminded that less than a century ago women were imprisoned, went on hunger strike and were force-fed simply because they wanted to be part of a democratic society. It was only ten years after the First World War that British women were given the same rights as men.

The programmes don't simply glorify the Suffragettes. Christabel Pankhurst in particular is shown enjoying a comfortable exile in Paris and organising an increasingly militant campaign while her followers are being tortured in prison.

The story of the Suffragettes ranks alongside the Civil Rights movement in the US and should be recognised as such. Even though they are now 30 years old these programmes would easily bear repeating on cable as an important lesson in social history.

Perhaps the powers that be are happier for us to take democracy for granted than remember its true value by showing how it was fought for.

I love this series (introduced to me by my mother when repeated in the late 1980s when it was 70 years of the vote) and often use our old worn out video copy in the classroom. The episode on Emily Davison I always found particularly hard hitting. Its a shame its never been released on DVD. Perhaps this is the year to push for it. If we are lucky, it might even get a repeat as its 90 years in 2008 since women were given the vote in the UK I've contacted the BBC to ask about release to DVD and have been told to write to BBC worldwide to suggest it. Maybe if we all write and get everyone we know to write, there might just be enough demand for its release. I'm happy to post the address they gave me if anyone wants it.

This is a great documentary of a very significant social movement that has had little attention given to it to date. The book is a great resource but the series is much more engaging. This is the type of thing that should be shown in schools to help young women get a sense of their own history. Not only in schools but it should also made accessible to the general public as well.

As they say, what we don't remember, we're bound to repeat. Just take a look at this video on UTube.

http://www.youtube.com/share?v=WWV45MuWBN4&embed=1

It's pretty amazing how a whole generation of girls knows nothing of what it took to get them the right to vote. No to mention the many other rights they take for granted now.

Having said that, I'd love to see the DVD set made available for "Shoulder to Shoulder". There really is nothing else like it out there. The one or two films available are too Hollywood and don't focus on the real issues but rather focus on the love lives (however falsely) of the women - instead of what they were doing. How come we never see that with male characters from history? I've noticed others who are waiting for it to be made available for purchase too. What's the hold up??

This title should be made available on DVD so that I can show the younger members of my family at what cost the vote was given to them. Not only was this splendid drama it was an invaluable lesson to a young me and I have never wasted my vote since seeing it. There is an apathy now among the young and their precious vote just does not seem important to them not a good attitude as past history can reveal. BBC Four screened one episode recently why only one? It is so frustrating to see one episode of such a quality drama and then not to be able to see the rest. When there are so many old dramas coming out for general view again surely this one is due for release so please release it distributors there are many out there who would love to see it again.

"Shoulder to Shoulder" is a BBC television serial from 1974 about the history of the Women's Social and Political Union, which fought for votes for women during the early twentieth century. The title derives from a line in the movement's anthem, "March of the Women", composed by Dame Ethel Smythe, herself a leading member. The serial is divided into six episodes, each focusing on one of the movement's leading lights- its founder Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, the working class Annie Kenney, the aristocratic Lady Constance Lytton and Emily Davidson. Davidson became the movement's most prominent martyr when she threw herself in front of the King's horse at the 1913 Derby.

It always surprises me how long it took for the women's suffrage movement to become a major force in British politics. Although some thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft had argued in favour of equal rights for women, earlier campaigns for electoral reform had largely ignored the issue. The 1832 Reform Act, for example, explicitly restricted the franchise to men, but few people at the time raised much of a protest. It was not until the late nineteenth century that there was a large-scale organised movement in favour of giving women the vote. It should be noted that at this period Britain (unlike some other countries such as France and Germany) did to have universal male suffrage; only around two thirds of British men had the vote, which was still linked to property qualifications. A criticism sometimes made of the suffragettes was that they were mostly middle-class women who resented the fact that many working-class men, whom they saw as their social inferiors, enjoyed a right which they were denied.

I would have two main criticisms of the series, which was recently shown on BBC4 as part of its policy of reviving classic dramas, many of which have not been seen since their original broadcast. The first would be that some of the episodes are overlong, with more talk than action. (Ironical, given that the movement's motto was "Deeds, not words"). We hear, for example, of Davidson's suicidal action, but it is not shown on screen, perhaps because it would not have been possible to re-enact it convincingly, given the limited budget of many BBC programmes.

My second criticism is more fundamental. The programme gives the misleading impression that the WSPU and the women's suffrage movement were virtually synonymous. In fact, it was only one of several groups fighting for votes to be given to women. The series makes no mention of the largest of these, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies or of its leader Millicent Fawcett. The nearest the programme comes to acknowledging its existence is when Constance Lytton makes a brief reference to other women's movements which according to her attracted less support. In fact, the NUWSS had far more members than the WSPU.

The decision to ignore it may have been deliberate, as part of the programme's tendentious thesis that radical direct action is necessary to bring about social change. Unlike the Pankhursts who deliberately organised a campaign of violence, including bombings, in order to secure their ends, Mrs Fawcett and her organisation had a strict policy of non-violence and respect for the law, which may have won more converts to their cause than the antics of the WSPU. Contrary to the impression given by the script, the WSPU's violence was not directed solely at property; four people were killed by suffragette bombs, and several others injured.

The serial's main strength is the power of the acting, particularly from Sian Phillips as Emmeline Pankhurst and Patricia Quinn as Christabel. Phillips was a frequent star of British television in the mid-seventies, generally playing strong, determined women like Empress Livia in "I, Claudius" and the Welsh matriarch in "How Green Was My Valley". Both Phillips and Quinn resist the temptation to idealise their characters. Both Emmeline and Christabel were passionate idealists, with great reserves of both moral and physical courage, but they also had their weaknesses.

Emmeline at times comes across as something of a snob, the sort of well-to-do intellectual socialist who believes that socialism is a top-down ideology which the liberal bourgeoisie have a duty to force upon the working class for their own good. Christabel is beautiful and charismatic, but arrogant and autocratic, and will brook no opposition to her will. Angela Down's Sylvia is more sympathetic, but at times unrealistic, as when she tries to recruit an illiterate East End girl into the movement by quoting to her from Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Bronte and John Stuart Mill, writers whom the girl is unlikely ever to have heard of, much less read. Other good contributions come from Fulton Mackay (of "Porridge" fame) as the Socialist leader Keir Hardie and Robert Hardy as the crafty Prime Minister Asquith, who never says anything against the cause of women's suffrage but never does anything to advance it. (Words, not deeds). The one contribution I did not like came from Judy Parfitt who never convinced me that Constance Lytton was anything other than a spoilt little rich girl and a neurotic pain in the neck, which was probably not the idea. The programme had its strengths, but it might have been improved by cutting each episode down to an hour from around an hour and a quarter, and by acknowledging that the Pankhursts' organisation was not solely responsible for winning women the vote. 6/10.

I can think of few tv shows that have that kind of impact. It is now 100 years since the first women got the vote - come on BBC - wake up, boys stop worrying about your pay packets, hegemony and whether the women might actually take over your jobs and put this glorious series on i-player! The show was well written, well acted, well directed and - almost most amazing of all at the time - starred women - with men only in supporting roles - it was utterly revolutionary as a tv series as well as being about a women's revolution. Wonderful

The BBC IS Tto repeat this wonderful series starting this week on BBC4, they have shown some fantastic gems over last year including THE ROADS TO FREEDOM, SUNSET SONG, HOTEL DU LAC , MOMETI MORI dare we hope for CAKES AND ALE with Michael Hordern and Judy Cornwall and THE BELL with Ian Holm and VILLETTE it is becoming increasingly obvious these still exist and have not been shredded as were told to believe! A bonus is an introduction to the series with Sian Phillips and two of the directors Moira Armstrong and Waris Hussein. Essentially these are six separate plays giving individual movements of key figures . It shows the internal squabbles within the Pankhurst family and how they would drop people who no longer agreed with their viewpoint. It's a fascinating warts and all intelligent series well worth this new viewingfifty years since first broadcast!

Watched this when it aired back in 1974 and have never forgotten it.

I seem to remember it was on quite late and I think on a school night.

It was shocking and amazing to me how much of a battle it was to win the vote for women. I vowed then that I would always vote once I was eligible to do so.

It did show the rifts between the Pankhursts, which disappointed me and I remember disliking Christabel intensely.

I watched the film Suffragette which, unfortunately, paled in comparison to Shoulder to Shoulder.

It is such a shame that there is no way to watch this today so that younger people can see it.

UPDATE.

Just found it on BBC iplayer. Hurrah.

I saw this TV series in 1974 whilst still at school. These were the days of one TV so watched this with my parents. Now seeing it again for the first time in 50 years. Brilliant writing and acting with the stand outs so far being Sian Phillips as the imperious Emmeline Pankhurst, Patricia Quinn (with that very distinctive voice) as the forceful Christabel Pankhurst and the underated Angela Douglas as the artistic and politically radical Sylvia Pankhurst. I hadn't realised that in this tv series Patricia Quinn played the daughter of Sian Phillips, the two actors teaming up later in ''I Claudius" a couple of years later - this time as grandmother Livia and grand daughter Livilla.