For some time now I have wanted to explore the story of the "Hotel de Marl" in Grangetown as the subject matter for a piece of theatre. Hundreds of working class men defied the government of the day, to get round the 1881 Sunday Closing Act which prohibited pubs from opening and banned the sale of alcohol on a Sunday. Instead, the men of Grangetown created illicit, open-air drinking clubs on The Marl, organised as invitation only "gentlemen's clubs", which were not restricted by the law.

I find the story both fascinating and amusing, so I wrote a monologue that attempted to deal with the story, as a pre-cursor to writing a full length play. Because I have been frustrated in my attempts to find a home for this piece, I performed it myself in front of my laptop, mixed in some sound effects and some original music and uploaded the end result to YouTube. 

If anyone is interested in having a listen please do. Its only just over 12 minutes in length. I am not an actor and I don't have professional quality recording equipment, just my laptop and its built in microphone. But I would really would like to share this piece of work with you - you can find the play here.

I hope at some point to able to re-visit the subject matter for a full-length play performed on The Marl itself.