After a run in Chichester last year, Hugh Whitemore’s play Stevie transfers to the Hampstead Theatre this month.
The biographical play follows Stevie Smith as she commutes to her secretarial job at a publishers, spending her evenings with her beloved maiden aunt here in Palmers Green, at the house in Avondale Road where she lived almost all her life. It’s a life of suburban routine, which, as in her famous poem Waving not Drowning, conceals something rather darker beneath.
The production, starring Zoe Wannamaker and Lynda Baron, has garnered good reviews from The Times and The Independent, though some others have been less glowing, about the production, and, apparently, about the life affirming possibilities of living in Palmers Green.
Stevie runs from now until 18 April at the Hampstead Theatre. Tickets are £18-£35
2 replies on ““Our drab north London suburb””
Although we are going to see it at the Hampstead Theatre, it is a good idea to try to bring the play to the Intimate Theatre, very close to Avondale Rd!
Dear Suzanne Beard…thank you for yore latest postins re a dreary suburb…I must get onto the poetry circuit soon as poss…annyway mebbee view the local celebrity play when it gets ‘ere in Bude and ‘er writins on the net…but bogged down with muddy ‘orsis, sheepins, cats, moles, voles, badgers, ‘edg’ogs, primrosis an’ insecs infestin our ‘edgis..the birdlife…welll… not to mention granchildrin cuttin themselves on barbed wire ‘an eatin’ daffodils etc…never knew about Stevie and ‘er friends attendance at the girls skool (or where it was) too busy larkin with the girls at Fox Lane (ancient Palmers Green Grammer Skool)…now, them Southgate County productions of Gilbert ‘an Sullivans..enuff to lighten the drabbist ‘o suburbs, eh? and as for the hIntimate Theatre, Queens, Palmadium \trams, trolleybussis steam trains (not to mention Grouts)…..and you could ‘ere up on the hill when ‘Spurs ‘ad scored a goal…what price a peaceful ‘olliday cottidge back there now (prefer one bedroom backin on to the New River…(‘tho not many White Hart Lane goals to cheer now on a drab afternoon with the winder open). Yors with thanks RR.