Photo Flash: First Look at Hope Theatre's HER ACHING HEART

4 and 5 star reviews continue to float across the media as critics and audiences alike praise The Hope Theatre's 25th anniversary in-house production of Bryony Lavery's hilarious Mill's and Boon pastiche 'Her Aching Heart' since curtains rose on the 29th November.

Bryony Lavery's wonderful pastiche of the Mills and Boon genre is revived at The Hope Theatre, Islington, in a 25th Anniversary production, featuring original music by Ian Brandon, directed by Matthew Parker; The Hope's Off West End award-nominated Artistic Director, and co-produced by The Hope and LWL Entertainment; who invest in and produce West End and Off West End theatre.

A lesbian historical romance. With songs! Grab a bonnet, lace up your corset, and prepare to swoon, as this tongue-in-cheek musical whirlwind sweeps you headlong into a gorgeous parody of the best in bonk-busting romance. Innocent maidens and haughty aristocrats ardently pursue each other through a tempestuous, gothic landscape, replete with murder, elopement and heaving bosoms a-plenty as the dazzling array of characters' passionate entanglements gradually draw together the two women who play them all.

"Oh what a day! Oh what a wind of hope blows through the echoing corridors of my breast! Rattling at the knobs and knockers of the doors to my dry and dusty emotions!"

"A deliciously irreverent parody of the historical romance, better known as the bonkbuster...Georgette Heyer never wrote anything quite like it, however and Barbara Cartland would be more than confused by this lesbian romance...hilarious" The Guardian

Harriet s played by Colette Eaton

Molly is played by Naomi Todd.

Writer: Bryony Lavery
Director: Matthew Parker

Assistant Director: Phil Croft

Producers: The Hope Theatre & LWL Entertainment

Associate Producer: David Ralf

Composer: Ian Brandon
Designer: Rachael Ryan
Lighting: Tom Kitney
Sound: Paul Freeman Production photographer Roy Tan

Casting Director Gabriella Shimeld-Fenn

Bryony Lavery's plays include Her Aching Heart [Pink Paper Play of The Year,1992], A Wedding Story, Last Easter, Smoke, Dirt and More Light. Her play Frozen, commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, won the TMA Best Play Award, the Eileen Anderson Central Television Award and was then produced on Broadway where it was nominated for four Tony Awards. Stockholm, for Frantic Assembly, won the Wolff-Whiting award for Best play of 2008. Beautiful Burnout for The National Theatre of Scotland and Frantic Assembly received a Fringe First at Edinburgh, before performances in the UK, New York, Australia and New Zealand. Stage adaptations include: 101 Dalmatians [a musical] at Chichester 2014, A Christmas Carol [for Birmingham Rep/Chichester Festival Theatre], Precious Bane, The Wicked Lady, Treasure Island [National Theatre 2014-15] and Behind The Scenes At The Museum for York Theatre Royal.

Press for Director Matthew Parker's work:

"Unmissable... The strongest fringe theatre show I have seen in a long, long time" Everything Theatre

"Matthew Parker orchestrates the whole with enormous panache and clarity" London Pub Theatres

"The most gorgeous off-West End play we've seen. Not only is this a fantastic production in its own right, it's an advertisement that the fringe is capable of thinking big and being big" Views from the Gods

Photo Credit: Roy Tan

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