Nora Connolly
As Kate Kelly
Mikey’s wife, Joey’s mother and Kathleen’s grandmother — at the centre of the Kelly family.
London’s East End
•
October 1936
Kate Kelly
When the Blackshirts reach her streets, Kate must choose.
The live run has ended • Recording available until 11 October 2026
Kate Kelly
The Play
Wapping
•
London’s East End
•
October 1936
Kate and Mikey Kelly’s home is a gathering place for their Irish community — a place of family and solidarity in a neighbourhood shaped by dock work, hardship and uncertain wages.
Outside, Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists are
preparing to march their Blackshirts through the East End.
Inside the Kelly home, the pressure is intensely personal.
Kate’s baby granddaughter is gravely ill, while her youngest
son is being drawn towards the local Blackshirts.
As the march approaches, Kate must decide whether to stay
indoors — or stand shoulder to shoulder with her husband,
neighbours and community.
The History
Cable Street
Sunday · 4 October 1936
Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists planned to march through London’s East End. Thousands of local people and anti-fascist demonstrators gathered to stop them.
Barricades were built across Cable Street as police attempted to clear a route for the march. Jewish East Enders stood alongside dock workers of Irish heritage, Somali seamen, trade unionists and others from across the community. The police were unable to clear the route and the planned fascist march through the East End was abandoned.
The World Around KateKate Kelly
The World Around Kate
Wapping
•
Work
•
Home
•
Health
Kate’s East End was not simply a backdrop. Work at the docks determined whether wages came home, crowded housing shaped family life, and serious illness could turn hardship into crisis.
The Docks & Irish Workers
Generations of Irish workers helped build Britain’s canals and railways before many found work in the expanding ports of London. Along the Thames, Irish families settled in waterfront communities including Wapping, Poplar and Bermondsey.
Dock work was dangerous, casual and deeply insecure. Men gathered at the morning call hoping to be chosen for a day’s labour, never certain that wages would come home that evening. Irish families could face hostility and discrimination even as their labour became part of the life and economy of the port.
Home in Wapping
Behind the warehouses, wharves and cranes were tightly packed streets where dockers’ families lived close to both work and one another. Low and uncertain wages made everyday life precarious.
Yet these neighbourhoods were also sustained by strong networks of family, friendship and mutual support. It is this Wapping — industrial, crowded and communal — that forms the world around Kate and Mikey Kelly.
Health in the East End
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis thrived in damp, overcrowded and poorly ventilated housing and could be devastating for working-class families, particularly when illness entered a home already living with financial insecurity.
In 1936 there were no modern antibiotics for TB. Rest, nourishing food and periods in a sanatorium formed part of contemporary treatment, but those possibilities could be far beyond the reach of a family dependent on casual dock wages.
The Story Behind the Play
Why Kate Kelly?
Kate Kelly grew from the stories Elaine Delay heard while sitting at the feet of her free-spirited grandfather. Born in Wapping in 1895, he was an Irish docker, storyteller and historian.
With cheeky humour and a gift for storytelling, he brought London’s working-class East End history to life through his own lived experience. Those stories became Elaine’s greatest education — and, decades later, the seed from which Kate Kelly grew.
Elaine Delay
Writer · Director · Producer
For almost thirty-five years Elaine taught in primary and secondary schools across East London before retiring in 2020. Retirement turned out to be only a brief intermission. When The Space Theatre offered her the opportunity to stage Kate Kelly, the chance was too exciting to turn down — even with no funding and the daunting task of writing, directing and producing the production herself.
Whoever says you can’t take risks, make mistakes and learn new tricks when you’re over seventy is completely wrong.
The Cast
Stephen Dyer
As Mikey Kelly
Kate’s husband, Joey’s father and Kathleen’s grandfather.
Tim Sanders
As Joey Kelly
Kate and Mikey’s youngest son, Bridget’s husband and Kathleen’s father.
Vikki Thompson
As Bridget Kelly
Joey’s wife and Kathleen’s mother, part of the younger generation of the Kelly family.
Jenny Jones
- Sister Ursula
- Sadie Cohen
- Doris Walker
Three contrasting women from the East End world around Kate.
Creative & Production
The Kate Kelly Team
Writer, Director & Producer
Elaine Delay
Assistant Director & Stage Manager
Matt Egan
Set Artist
Tim Sanders
Set Design
Tim Sanders & Nora Connolly
Stage Crew
Shona Ramsey, David James & Bob Hepburn Battersby
Props
Mary Thompson & Claire Robbins
Kate Kelly Knicker Knitter
Paula Rose Elliot
Light & Sound Design
Mattie Jameson
Wardrobe
Sourced and created by the cast, with added magic from Mary Thompson
Promotion & Publicity
Kate Howe
Photographer
James Klug
Visual Identity, Print & Digital Design
Venue
The Space Theatre Team
Front of House
Kate Howe & David James
Music
Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s an Irish Lullaby)
Written in 1913 by James Royce Shannon; music, singing and humming by Mary Monfries.
We Stood in Their Way
Written and sung by Mike and Reina Reinstein.
Watch Kate Kelly
The Live Run Has Ended
The Space Theatre
October 2026
Live Run
1, 3 & 4 October 2026
The Space Theatre · London
Recording
Available until 11 October
Access until 23:59
Running Time
120 Minutes
Including interval
The October live performances of Kate Kelly at The Space Theatre have now ended. If you missed the run — or would like to see it again — you can still watch the production online for a limited time. A recording of the livestream is available to book until 23:59 on 11 October 2026, with the viewing link supplied on your print-at-home ticket.
Watch OnlinePay What You Choose
Subsidised
£6
Standard
£12
Supporter
£18
Content Warning
This production is set in the 1930s and contains racist, bigoted and antisemitic language. It also contains material relating to infant mortality and scenes that some audiences may find distressing.
Recording of the October 2026 performance at The Space Theatre
Get in Touch
Contact
Kate Kelly
For enquiries about the play, press, future productions, historical material or the wider Kate Kelly project, please get in touch.
Enquiries
Katekelly13@pm.me
For booking or access enquiries relating to the online recording, please contact The Space Theatre directly.