St Paul's Drama Group

Thomas Gradgrind, a citizen of the northern industrial town of Coketown, is a Utilitarian: an enemy to Fancy and a worshiper of Fact. He is intent on having the pupils in his model school—who include his children, Tom and Louisa—crammed so full of knowledge as to leave no room for anything else. The children have been harshly raised by their father and know nothing but the most factual, pragmatic information. Their lives are devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination and the two have little or no empathy for others.

Two other pupils of Gradgind’s school are the naturally affectionate Sissy Jupe, the daughter of a circus performer and Bitzer, an emotionless boy who absorbs all of Gradgrind’s precepts.  When Sissy’s father abandons her, Gradgrind takes her into his household, making her a companion to his ailing wife.  Sissy becomes a faithful friend to Louisa and Tom.  The calculated, cold-hearted Bitzer is her opposite and turns on his old mentor in the end.

Louisa marries her Father’s friend, Josiah Bounderby, a vulgar banker and mill owner 30 years her senior who untruthfully claims to be an entirely self-made man, abandoned by his mother at an early age and reared in the street. She eventually leaves her husband and returns to her father's house. Her brother, Tom, unscrupulous and vacuous, robs his brother-in-law's bank. It is only after these crises that their father realises the principles by which he raised his children have corrupted their lives.