TEN days of thought provoking, thrilling and above all, entertaining drama, is soon to grace Kendal.

Under the innovative banner of Kendal Community Theatre, The Trouble with Women Festival of Plays runs from July 18-28 and celebrates the 100th anniversary of women gaining the vote. The strength, determination and spirit which suffragists and suffragettes showed are portrayed in five very different plays under the deft direction of Chris Taylor, Jayne Davies and Emma Rucastle.

Taking its title and logo by permission of awarding winning cartoonist Jacky Fleming, The Trouble with Women performances are staged at Kendal Museum, Castle Street Centre and Kendal Town Centre.

First, is Antigone, one of the great tragedies, set in war torn Thebes, where Oedipus has died. His two sons, Eteocles and Polynices have fought each other to be ruler in his place. Both are killed. Eteocles, as a traitor, is left to be eaten by dogs. Outraged Antigone defies her uncle the dictator Creon and buries her brother. In punishment he walls her up to die of starvation in the dark.

Antigone - directed by Chris - plays for four nights at Kendal Museum from Wednesday, July 18 until the Saturday, July 21 (7.30pm).

The Trouble with Women also includes How the Vote Was Won by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St John, a propaganda play from 1909, set in the house of Horace Cole on the day of a general women's strike called by Suffragettes.

On the double bill with How the Vote Was Won will be Big Fat Pig staged on three nights at Castle Street Centre on July 25 and July 27-28 (7.30pm) and directed by Jayne Davies.

Big Fat Pig has been specially written for KCT by BBC broadcast journalist Emily Unia. Inspired by the death of MP Jo Cox, it's set in 2018 and focuses on a female parliamentary candidate for Westmorland and Lonsdale who finds herself the victim of sexism, trolling and death threats: should she be intimidated or retaliate?

Jayne said that when campaigning for women’s suffrage over 100 years ago Emmeline Pankhurst declared that women demanded "freedom or death." She added: "The battle for the vote wasn’t going to be easy but women were prepared for the fight. Being part of The Trouble With Women festival is my way of carrying on that fight and agitating for equality."

Another KCT double bill, Handbagged and Changing Times also run at Castle Street Centre with performances on July 24 and July 26 at 7.30pm plus a 2pm matinee on Saturday, July 28.

Handbagged by Moira Buffini needs little introduction. The well-known one act comedy speculates on the relationship between Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister, and her Monarch, the Queen.

Sharing the Handbagged billing is Janice Wilson's Changing Times, an amusing short play about the conflict between an Edwardian couple in Kendal because of the changing aspirations of women. First performed as part of Kendal Yarns Festival of New Plays in 2016 it has been adapted for The Trouble with Women. Janice is a cultural historian involved in portraying local and social history with Ghostcog at Beetham's Heron Corn Mill.

Emma Rucastle is in the director's chair. She said that Handbagged is a witty, fresh, watchable take on one of the late 20th Century's most interesting power dynamics: between Queen Elizabeth 2 and her Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: "We're having enormous fun in the rehearsal room and can't wait to share the play with an audience."

"Changing Times sees the struggle for power between husband and wife heat up to boiling point due to the idea of Votes for Women. Janice Wilson's comedy deals with the female struggle for equality, keeping a light touch throughout. Don't miss it!"

Elsewhere, and also embedded in the festival is Strong Women Street Theatre - courtesy of a grant from the Women’s Centenary Fund - held on Saturday, July 21, when KCT, members of the WI, the MU and political parties, Rangers and Guides, other women - and some men - will take part in a march across Kendal to celebrate gaining the vote in 1918.

The marchers will sing The March of the Women and chain themselves to the railings and each other.

The event features speeches, written by Kendal Yarns’ writers Moira Hallam, Laura Carter and Sheelagh O’Brien, from local activists of the time who disagreed with each other over the suffrage.

Chris Taylor explained: "When in 2016 we started planning The Trouble with Women festival to celebrate women's achieving the suffrage in 1918 we could not have imagined how appropriate these entertaining and provoking plays would be in 2018 when the issues of women's work conditions and pay and sexual harassment have resurfaced so strongly."

The Trouble with Women promises another stimulating series of shows staged by a fabulously forward thinking theatre group that really does have 'community' as its core.

Tickets are available from the Brewery Arts Centre on 01539-725133.