Photos: Inside the Rehearsal Room for MAGGIE MAY at Leeds Playhouse

See first look images of the Maggie May rehearsal room show the cast coming together as a family, with all the love, laughter, tears and kitchen singalongs that entails.

Brookside star Eithne Browne and musical theatre favourite Tony Timberlake star as married couple Maggie and Gordon in this new play with music that shines a light on a close-knit Leeds family's experience of living with dementia.

Written by award-winning writer Frances Poet and directed by Jemima Levick, Maggie May runs in the Courtyard theatre at Leeds Playhouse from 7-21 May before transferring to Queen's Theatre Hornchurch from 24-28 May and Curve from 7-11 June.

The play was originally commissioned in 2017 as part of Leeds Playhouse's award-winning Every Third Minute Festival, an innovative seven-week festival of theatre, dementia and hope curated by people living with dementia and their supporters.

"It felt like quite a daunting task to find a form that could work for and be truthful to an audience of people living with dementia, their carers as well as a wider audience with no direct connection to dementia," said playwright Frances Poet. "I'm not usually mystical about my writing in any way but, in this instance, I can honestly say that the character of Maggie helped me through. She seemed to arrive fully formed, speaking her first monologue. She showed me the way.

"Some of the Playhouse's amazing ambassadors came to an early reading of the play at the Every Third Minute festival. It was an absolutely glorious morning. When Maggie tells her son that she might forget him but will remember him in her heart, a man in front of me nudged his wife and gave her a little nod. It had obviously resonated with him. It was a wonderful moment."

The play centres around Maggie, played by Eithne Browne, one of Liverpool's most well-loved and popular actors - she's even the voice of the Mersey Ferries. With starring roles in the original Blood Brothers in the West End, Shirley Valentine, and numerous Liverpool Royal Court Theatre productions and TV appearances on Waterloo Road, Cold Feet and as Brookside regular Chrissy Rogers, she has enjoyed a dazzling career spanning more than three decades.

"Maggie is a wonderful character to play," said Eithne. "She ran the school kitchen; she made dinner for 500 children a day. In other words, she's very capable. She can be very brusque - it's her way to be sharp - but she's also very loving and very funny. I don't think she's ever been anybody's fool.

"Maggie is full of spirit; she says exactly what she thinks and she feels things very deeply. Can you tell that I absolutely love playing her?"

Tony Timberlake, who stars as Maggie's husband Gordon, has enjoyed a long and illustrious theatre career, including Chicago (Garrick Theatre); Hairspray (Shaftesbury Theatre); Spamalot (Palace Theatre); Singin' in the Rain (National Theatre); Les Miserables (Palace Theatre); and Into the Woods (Donmar Warehouse).

The five-strong Maggie May cast also includes York actor Mark Holgate (Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Rose Theatre; Julius Caesar, The Crucible, Sheffield; Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Tina & Bobby) as Maggie and Gordon's son Michael; Leeds actor Shireen Farkhoy (The Ipcress File, ITV1; Silent Witness, BBC1) as Mark's girlfriend Claire; and Maxine Finch (LIT, Nottingham Playhouse; Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, DCI Banks) as Maggie's best friend, Jo.

The creative team includes Set & Costume Designer Francis O'Connor, Theatre and Dementia Advisor Dr Nicky Taylor, Associate Designer Alex Doidge-Green, Movement Director Joseph Mercier, Lighting Designer Chris Davey, Composer & Sound Designer Claire McKenzie, Casting Director Kay Magson and Dialect Coach Eleanor Manners.

All performances of Maggie May at Leeds Playhouse, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch and Curve will be dementia-friendly, with additional staff, detailed pre-show information and a quiet space. Each venue will also host a free interactive installation - the Picture Booth - designed by Leeds Playhouse Resident Designer Warda Abbasi to amplify the experiences of people living with dementia.

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