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Su Pollard to Embark on Major UK Tour with Edinburgh Fringe Hit Harpy

by Staff Writer
January 13, 2020
Reading Time: 4 mins read
Harpy Su Pollard courtesy of Karla Gowlett

Harpy Su Pollard courtesy of Karla Gowlett

Following a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018, personality and national treasure Su Pollard (Hi-De-Hi! and You Rang M’Lord?, BBC) returns to reprise her role in Harpy by award-winning playwright Philip Meeks (Kiss Me Honey, Honey!; Murder, Margaret and Me), as part of an extensive UK tour this Spring.

Best known for her star-turn as Peggy in the BAFTA award-winning sitcom Hi-de-Hi!, the muchloved Su Pollard has had a career in showbusiness spanning four decades. She returns to the stage as Birdie in Harpy, a play originally commissioned for her, now under new direction by Abigail Anderson (Pride and Prejudice, UK and South Korean tour; Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing, Merely Theatre).

A tour-de-force performance from Pollard, Harpy is a heart wrenching exploration of one woman’s struggles with mental health and loneliness, manifesting itself through extreme hoarding. At heart it’s a bittersweet dramatic comedy, which showcases a grittier side to the Su Pollard of the eighties, and also asks us to look beyond our prejudices against those who appear to disrupt the norm.

       

The neighbours call Birdie a harridan and a harpy even though most of them have never even met her. They see her obsessive hoarding as detrimental to the value of their own homes. For Birdie, saving what others regard as the junk from her own life allows her to make sense of the world around her; her possessions are memories of a time past. Shunned by conventional society, she regards it as her duty to salvage these tiny histories that without her would be entirely forgotten.

Harpy is inspired by the retro cinematic sub-genre of Grand Dame Guignol – or ‘hag horror’ – wherein fading stars battled to survive by playing mad, potentially dangerous women or bewildered creatures in peril. Beneath their acting veneer were brave and brilliant women and Meeks is fascinated by their survival instincts. This idea of struggling and fighting for what we believe in comes to the fore in Harpy which seeks to explore mental health, questioning what madness really is.

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Su comments, “I am thrilled to be able to bring Harpy to a wider audience across the UK, having first performed it at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018. I hope the new audiences enjoy themselves as much as I’m enjoying revisiting this complex character. Philip Meeks’ writing is both funny and poignant, and many people have remarked at how relatable the content is, openly tackling issues of mental health.”

Harpy Tour Dates:

12th – 13th March King’s Theatre, Portsmouth

18th March Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds 

20th March Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh

       

25th March Haymarket Anvil Arts, Basingstoke

27th March Theatre Royal Margate

28th March Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot

29th March Castle Theatre, Wellingborough

2nd April Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton

8th April Theatr Hafren, Newtown

9th April Waterside Theatre, Sale

14th April Blackpool Grand Theatre

15th April Gala Theatre, Durham

16th April Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere

20th – 21st April Leicester Curve

23rd April The Horsham Capitol 

25th April Hull Truck Theatre 

28th April The Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone

30th April Borough Theatre Town Hall, Abergavenny

2nd May Lichfield Garrick Theatre  

 

Staff Writer

Staff Writer

At Theatre Weekly we are dedicated to giving theatre a new audience. Our News, Reviews and Interviews are all written with the audience in mind, helping you decide what to see next. And when you have decided, our great ticket deals will help save you money too.

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