Matchstick Girls

Based on an idea by Lou Spain

Producers:    Lou Spain and Stephen Marsh

This inspiring recession drama retells the true, untold story of how fourteen hundred courageous girls walked out of their workplace and straight into the history books.

In July 1888, during a growing economic depression, a group of uneducated, teenage match factory girls took on one of the biggest industrial giants of the day, undertaking the first strike by unskilled labour in British history, and won!

This incredibly courageous triumph over adversity story gave birth of a union movement unprecedented in British social history, and its echoes that can be found in many different places. From the student protests in the UK to the “Arab Spring” that has been driven largely by young people in the Middle East.

It serves as a timely reminder that after years of apathy, recession and rising unemployment, a civil movement for change can occur at any time and can come from the most unlikely and extraordinary sources, even teenage girls!