Acclaimed British film director Mike Leigh is looking for extras to star in his next film which will be about Manchester’s Peterloo Massacre.

Leigh’s previous films include Oscar nominated Mr. Turner, Vera Drake, Another Year, Secrets & Lies and Career Girls.

The film will star Bolton actress Maxine Peake.

(Image: Hulton Archive)

Fifteen people were killed and more than 600 were injured when cavalrymen charged a crowd at a protest rally in Manchester on August 16, 1819. The bloodbath in St Peter’s Fields became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

Leigh, who was born in Higher Broughton, Salford, is now casting for extras in Kent, Essex, Lancashire and Lincoln over the summer. The production company, Piece of Cake Casting is looking for men and women aged between 17 and 99 of all ethnicities with natural-coloured hair and no visible tattoos or piercings.

(Image: Paul Simpson)

For more information on the casting agency and position you can check out their website here . They will contact you should they wish for you to attend a registration interview.

St Peter’s Fields is now St Peter’s Square and a plaque commemorating the event is on the side of the Free Trade Hall on Peter Street, which is a Radisson Hotel today.

The plaque reads: On 16 August 1819 a peaceful rally of 60,000 pro-democracy reformers, men, women and children, was attacked by armed cavalry resulting in 15 deaths and over 600 injuries.