Nottingham

Driving to Nottingham each day last week to perform Awful Auntie was a special experience. Not only because the Theatre Royal is one of my favourite theatres on which I was finally treading the boards, but also because nearly forty years ago I was making the same journey with Mandy Platt to perform my company’s very first play, A Woman In Love. I had commissioned my drama teacher Tony Cottrell from Clifton College to write a drama about D.H. Lawrence, which Mandy and I were performing in various village halls where Lawrence had grown up. (My Dad helped us put the set up for our world premiere and after the show it was the first time I saw him cry). So here I was again, nearly forty years later, on the same road driving to Nottingham to perform in another play. Tomorrow I will be meeting Tony Cottrell for dinner in Cornwall on my way to perform Awful Auntie in Truro. Forty years suddenly seems such a brief span of time.