The drama series grew out of discussions between Mackenzie and the actress and singer Georgia Brown, who was dissatisfied at the lack of decent roles for women in TV drama. Brown enlisted the producer Verity Lambert in the project she and Mackenzie were devising to dramatise the struggle for women's suffrage, and the three women presented the idea to the BBC, which gave approval for the series. Originally they had hoped to use only female script writers but this proved impracticable. Male writers were used and the three female originators of the project later said they needed to remove from their scripts a number of 'innuendoes, misconceptions and untruths' indicative of what Georgia Brown termed "the male point of view".[1]
After an extensive period of critical neglect,[1]Shoulder to Shoulder was rebroadcast on BBC Four in April 2024 to mark both its 50th anniversary and the 90th birthday of Phillips, as well as being added to BBC iPlayer. A retrospective conversation between Phillips, Hussein and Armstrong was also shown.[6]
Tie-in book
The book Shoulder to Shoulder documents the lives and works of some of Britain's leading suffragettes. It includes many excerpts from their speeches, diaries, letters, memoirs, other writings and various newspaper cuttings, photographs, and cartoons.[7]