Inspired by Tina Packer’s seminal exploration of Shakespeare’s female characters, Women of Will arrives at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a new play written by Siofra Dromgoole and starring Ella Loudon alongside Nigel Gore. Set around an unlikely friendship forged in a pub, the production uses Shakespeare’s heroines as a jumping-off point for a wider conversation about empathy, communication and change. We caught up with Dromgoole and Loudon to talk about reimagining Packer’s work, making Shakespeare accessible, and why the people who think they dislike Shakespeare might be the perfect audience.
For Dromgoole, the project brought together two lifelong passions. “I kind of always knew I wanted to be a writer,” they explain. “I have written predominantly for theatre and have taken quite a few plays to the Fringe with my own theatre company, Three Sisters. I’m always interested in new writing, but always a huge lover of Shakespeare. This felt like my dream commission, getting to admire and explore Shakespeare, but within a framework of new writing and exploring what Shakespeare means to the world right now.”
Loudon’s journey to the play came from a very different starting point. “I always knew I wanted to perform,” they say. “But one of the funniest things was that I actually really disliked Shakespeare for a long time. When you’re brought up in the UK, we’re forced to learn it instead of learning to appreciate it.” Everything changed after meeting Tina Packer, whose work forms the foundation of Women of Will. “She just made me look at it in a different light. I suddenly wanted everyone else to be able to have that opportunity to see it as well. That was why I wanted to do this play in this form.”
The collaboration between writer and performer felt almost inevitable. Dromgoole laughs recalling how the commission came about. “Ella asked around quite a few people on the lines of, ‘I’m looking for an emerging playwright who also really likes Shakespeare.’ My name came up from three totally disparate people.”
For Loudon, the choice became obvious after reading Dromgoole’s work. “As soon as I read Siofra’s writing, it reminded me of what you would hope was said between the lines in Shakespeare,” they explain. “That was kind of the whole point of this play. I wanted it to be what was said between the lines. The real communication. There was something essential in that which I was looking for.”
While Tina Packer’s original work was rooted in analysis, Loudon was determined to approach it from a more theatrical perspective. “I’m not an academic, and it would feel like I was being a fraud,” they say. Instead, what resonated was Packer’s deeply human approach to Shakespeare. “One thing Tina did that a lot of academics don’t do is acknowledge the humanness of who Shakespeare could have been as just a normal person like you or me. I think any artist will know that if you lead with empathy, you can do anything. That’s what Tina really spoke about.”
Dromgoole was fortunate enough to spend time with Packer before their passing earlier this year, describing those conversations as both inspiring and liberating. “We had two Zooms, which were very lucky because she passed away this year,” they say. “She was an extraordinary person. It felt like she was giving everything she could and all the information she could and then saying, ‘Run with it.’ It felt like there was a big act of trust going on.”
That trust allowed Dromgoole to reshape the material into something entirely new. “I felt a lot of freedom,” they explain. “With that much material, I didn’t need to go against the grain of anything. It was all there. It was just about reforming and reframing it.”
As a two-hander, Women of Will depends heavily on the connection between its performers. For Loudon, working with Nigel Gore, who appeared in the original production with Packer, has been invaluable. “He knows the work in such a deep way,” they say. “I’ve known him for over a decade. It’s just magic to get to do more work with him. Knowing him already, it’s easier to be vulnerable and do vulnerable work.”
Ultimately, both artists hope audiences will discover a version of Shakespeare that feels welcoming rather than intimidating. “It’s really accessible,” says Loudon. “You come and have a drink, you sit, you’re at a bar and you’re watching two people communicate in a pub. The accessibility is a huge part of it all.”
Dromgoole agrees. “It’s Shakespeare as Shakespeare was actually intended. It’s accessible and it’s moving.”
And for anyone who still thinks Shakespeare isn’t for them, Loudon has a final message. “The people who might enjoy it the most are the ones who think they don’t like Shakespeare,” they say. “The goal is that it might surprise you, because you have a lot more understanding of it than you realise.”
Listings and ticket information can be found here
