Bird Grove

Bird Grove description

Alexi Kaye Campbell's Bird Grove is a gorgeously witty, topical new play.

As Mary Ann Evans says in Bird Grove, “as long as you only have one sort of person telling the stories, well then our world will end up looking very like that one sort of person. It makes sense, doesn't it?”

This is her story. The year is 1841, and Mary Ann Evans is only just old enough to marry. Mary and her dad, Robert, have recently moved into Bird Grove House, a decision with only one purpose: to marry Mary off to a suitable church-going husband. Mary is a bright spark, an intellectual in the making, and as she grows ever-more confident in herself and her mind blossoms, her progressive new ideas challenge her dad's most cherished beliefs.

With every book she reads and every local radical she meets, Mary's mistrust of the culture she is trapped in increases. But the increasingly bitter conflict with the father she loves doesn't stop Mary from finding her way in the world by changing her name and writing her heart out... under the nom de plume of a male novelist called George Eliot.

Writer Alexi Kaye Campbell's dazzling new drama looks at how we manage to get along with people we don't agree with by putting the life of one of Britain's greatest writers under the microscope. The result is a poignant exploration of family ties and self-determination. Alexi previously gave us the Olivier Award-winning The Pride, Apologia, and Sunset at the Villa Thalia. Director Anna Ledwich returns to the venue where she has previously directed The Billionaire Inside Your Head, Labyrinth, and Olivier nominated productions of Dry Powder and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds.

This highly entertaining play reveals just how far our society and culture have come in the last 185 years. Buy tickets to Bird Grove to enjoy a compelling story set in a time when women are glad has gone for good.

Playing at Hampstead Theatre

Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London, NW3 3EU GB (venue info)

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