Peterloo movie showing at Bo'ness Hippodrome

Director Mike Leigh's harrowing movie account of the infamous Peterloo Massacre - in which government troops charged into a workers' rights march - is being screened at the Hippodrome in Bo'ness on November 30.

Next year is the bicentenary of the massacre, which took place at a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester - at a time when countless thousands faced desperate poverty.

Similar pressures in Scotland erupted into violence in the following year when a group of radicals were confronted by government cavalry in the so-called Battle of Bonnymuir.

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The numbers and the casualties involved were paltry, compared to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, but the Weavers’ Revolt was a dark episode in Scotland’s history in which no mercy was shown to those considered ringleaders - but later regarded as martyrs.

In the Peterloo Massacre (the name is a pun on the 1815 Battle of Waterloo) many protestors were killed and hundreds more injured.

An outcry followed, but many years were to follow before the concepts of industrial relations and participative democracy began to slowly gain traction.

The movie has a single screening at the Hippodrome on November 30,at 4pm.

For further details phone 01324 506850 or email [email protected]