[F]our bold and vibrant women are about to take centre stage at Theatre by the Lake, as the next Summer Season show arrives in the TBTL Studio: Bold Girls by the celebrated writer Rona Munro, from 21 June.
Set in 1991 in West Belfast, Bold Girls tells the story of Marie, Cassie and Nora. With their husbands either locked up or killed, they’re just trying to get on with their lives, despite the bombs, burning buses and soldiers trampling the flower beds. Life must go on – after all, there’s still laundry to do and kids to feed.
But when a mysterious young woman turns up on Marie’s doorstep and disrupts their girls’ night out, the devastating revelations which ensue will shatter dreams and threaten their friendship irrevocably.
Sharply funny, moving, yet never shying from the harsh realities of life during The Troubles, the award-winning Bold Girls announced Rona Munro as one of the best playwrights of her generation in this celebration of women’s strength under siege.
Now an established and acclaimed writer, Bold Girls was Munro’s break-through play, winning her the 1991 Susan Smith Blackburn Award and Evening Standard’s Most Promising Playwright Award. Her play Iron was a hit in TBTL’s 2016 season and, most recently, her award-winning history cycle The James Plays were performed by the National Theatre of Scotland before transferring to the National Theatre in London (described in a glowing 5 star review in The Daily Telegraph as being ‘better than Shakespeare’). Munro has also written extensively for television, including for Doctor Who, for which she’s the only writer to date to have worked on the classic and revived eras of the show.
Theatre by the Lake’s production of Bold Girls is directed by Bobby Brook and features Christine Entwisle, Alice Imelda, Sarah Kempton and Lydea Perkins; all actors will also perform in Sense & Sensibility, with Christine Entwisle and Lydea Perkins having already set the Studio space alight with their performances in Rails.
Alice Imelda, for whom Bold Girls is her first production at TBTL, said: ““It’s been an absolute blast working on Bold Girls. Cassie is such a wonderful character to play and it’s a treat to work with such a strong cast and crew.”
Bobby Brook, the show’s director, added: “This wonderfully passionate play offers us a slice of what life was like for women during The Troubles. And that slice of life is beautiful, bossy, laugh-out-loud funny, wild and heart-breaking all at the same time. For me, most importantly, it’s about four individual, strong, hopeful and bold women.”
Bold Girls plays in Theatre by the Lake’s Studio from 21 June to 24 October (in rep with Single Spies, Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense and Sense & Sensibility in the Main House, and Rails in the Studio). Tickets range from £12.50 to £26; for more information and to book tickets visit www.theatrebythelake.com or call the Box Office on 017687 74411.