Agatha Christie’s A Daughter’s A Daughter is to receive its West End premiere in December, 55 years after it first opened in Bath. Jenny Seagrove will lead the production, which runs at the Trafalgar Studio 1 from 14 December to 9 January.
Written under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott, A Daughter’s A Daughter is a more personal play than Christie’s other work, exploring the relationships within a dysfunctional family. Sarah, returning from the Second World War, convinces her mother Ann to ditch her fiancé and live life to the hilt. In an effort to please Ann, though, Sarah feels the need to marry the cad with whom she has become involved. Resentment and jealousy rage as the relationship between mother and daughter is corroded.
Seagrove is joined in the cast by Honeysuckle Weeks, Tracey Childs, Simon Dutton and Ann Wenn.
Seagrove’s last London outing came in 2008, when she appeared in Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular. Her previous stage work in the capital has included The Letter, The Night Of The Iguana, The Secret Rapture and The Constant Wife. Her film roles include Zoe and A Shocking Accident, while on television she has appeared in Judge John Deed.
Weeks, who makes her West End debut in A Daughter’s A Daughter, is best known for her long-running role as Samantha Stewart in Second World War-set TV detective drama Foyle’s War. Acting professionally since the age of 12, the 30-year-old actress has screen credits including The Strawberry Tree, The Orchard Walls and The Rag Nymph.
Childs is also a familiar television face, having appeared in series including Born And Bred, Howard’s Way, Sense And Sensibility and The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. She appeared at the smaller Trafalgar Studio 2 earlier this year, starring opposite Matthew Kelly in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
The limited run of A Daughter’s A Daughter, which is directed by Roy Marsden, fills the period at the Trafalgar Studio 1 between the Lenny Henry-led production of Othello, which closes on 10 December, and the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse production of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, which stars Jonathan Pryce and begins its London run on 12 January.
MA