“Heroism is danger and risk, and frankly, until now, it’s been male.”

In the near future a group of women gather in a half built hotel on Winter Hill in Bolton; is it a book group discussing famous heroines? Is it a chance to meet with friends and drink wine? Or is it…a revolution?

Winter Hill centres on a group of eight local women, as they deal with the ramifications of land on nearby Winter Hill being sold to developers to create a luxurious skyscraper hotel – the largest in Europe. To appease the local community, they are promised by developers that a new school and social housing will also be built on the hill. However, as the money begins to run out, these plans are scrapped leading to the group meeting up in the half-built hotel to discuss what, if anything, can be done about it and if power can ever truly belong to the people.

In this new play by one of the most influential British playwrights, Timberlake Wertenbaker, author of the award-winning plays Our Country’s Good and Jefferson’s Garden, we see how seemingly ordinary women endeavour to protect the landscape of Bolton forever, no matter the cost. Questioning the lengths people go to for a cause they believe in, we are left asking at what point does the fight for freedom become terrorism?

Watch the cast and writer of Winter Hill rehearsing on location on BBC North West Tonight: