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Cat and Mouse - the play

In the summer of 1914 four women are jailed for political violence in Scotland. They hunger strike. The government orders force feeding.

Arabella Scott tried to burn down a racecourse stand. Now she's in Perth Prison, under the care of Dr Hugh Ferguson Watson. Morning and evening, he arrives in a butcher's overall to put her through the brutal procedure of "artificial feeding". Between times, he returns in his doctor's clothes, dismissing the prison warders, and they talk.

He sees them as doctor and patient, she as torturer and victim. He wants her to eat. She wants to weaken physically, forcing the government to release her. One night, worn down by isolation, she despairs. Shocked by this crisis, and by the unexpected feelings stirred up in himelf, he urges her to rally and regain her fighting spirit.

Cat and Mouse rehearsed reading at the Soutar Theatre, Perth, October 2010

Meanwhile the prison is under siege. Thousands of women picket the gates, singing hymns late into the night.

Three other suffragettes pass through the doctor's hands: the anti-prostitution campaigner Fanny Gordon (whom his cure comes close to killing); Maude Edwards, jailed for sticking an axe in the king's portrait; and Fan Parker, would-be bomber of Burns' cottage in Alloway.

Each of these women increases the pressure on the doctor and the hysterical atmosphere inside the jail. His use of rectal feeding as a last resort is reported in the newspapers, causing public outrage. Fan Parker is sexually assaulted by a female warder. The doctor's judgement is questioned in parliament.

Claiming a scientist's curiosity, he asks Arabella to describe her experience of being force-fed. What she tells him devastates him. He offers her a deal: if she gives up her hunger strike, the government will send her to Canada - so long as he escorts her there. She refuses, but registers the implications of the offer, and their volatile relationship acquires a new, explicitly personal dimension. They quarrel, more like lovers than political opponents. Unforgiveable words are exchanged.

Arabella hears her sister Muriel, outside the prison walls, encouraging her to "fight on" for the cause. But is Arabella still fighting for women's votes - or has her struggle with the doctor become an end in itself? The next day, he asks for her help. The police have wind of a plan to blow up his house. She agrees to dictate a letter dissuading the plotters. He takes down her words, not realising that they are a coded incitement to violence. Too late, she regrets what she has done.