A black British woman celebrates her 100th birthday and reflects on her radical past. A 21-year-old Bengali freedom fighter rebels against colonial rule in Thirties India. A young secretary helps her friend find herself in early Sixties England, as the sexual revolution gathers pace. An actress reckons with her place in the #MeToo movement. Women take to the streets in 1977 for the first Reclaim the Night protest.

These disparate characters are just some of those that appear in Snatches, a new series of monologues set to air across four nights on BBC Four from Monday 18 June. Curated by Vicky Featherstone, the series is part of the BBC’s Hear Her season, marking 100 years of partial women’s suffrage.

Each monologue has been written by an acclaimed female playwright, including Abi Morgan, Theresa Ikoko and Tanika Gupta, and each is performed by a different actress – from Romola Garai to Jodie Comer and Black Mirror’s Kiran Sonia Sawar. The series aims to shine a spotlight on a broad range of female experiences in the century since the first British women got the vote, and to look forward at the challenges yet to come.

As a project, it’s a perfect fit for Featherstone, who – as the first ever female artistic director of London’s Royal Court Theatre – has long championed women’s voices and stories. In 2016, she ensured that most of the works staged at the Royal Court were by women playwrights, and she is outspoken about her desire to make theatre a more inclusive and diverse place. Last autumn, as the world reeled in the wake of the revelations about Harvey Weinstein, Featherstone hopped onto Twitter and warned the theatre world to pay attention.

“Hollywood can speak out, British theatre must too,” she wrote. “I have a responsibility as do many of you to end the abuses of power in our industry.” Less than a month later, she organised a day of events for theatre professionals at the Royal Court, hoping to create a space for discussions about sexual misconduct. Some 150 testimonies of sexual harassment were read aloud over the course of the day, and Featherstone and her team used the ensuing conversations to create a code of conduct for people working in theatre.

Stylist caught up with Featherstone just before she boarded a plane to New York, where her play Cyprus Avenue is currently on at Manhattan’s Public Theater, to talk Snatches, #MeToo and the challenges of hiring an all-female team.

How Vicky Featherstone’s new TV series spotlights women’s stories