St. James Theatre, 12 Palace Street, London SW1E 5JA
Wednesday 13th April – Saturday 21st May 2016
Press night: Monday 18th April, 7pm

New production company Tiny Fires Ltd. presents the first London revival in over 25 years of Charlotte Keatley’s award-winning debut play My Mother Said I Never Should, as part of the spring season at St James.

 
Tiny Fires is run by director Paul Robinson and producer Tara Finney, the award-nominated team behind the critically acclaimed Land of Our Fathers which transferred to Trafalgar Studios in September 2014 and tours nationally this autumn. Paul and Tara have worked together on a number of shows over the last three years and have set up a new company to continue their successful collaboration. They will create emotionally arresting and visually dynamic theatre and film to inspire a new generation.

 
Their inaugural production, My Mother Said I Never Should is a moving exploration of the relationships between mothers and daughters and the consequences of breaking the most sacred taboo of motherhood. Doris, born illegitimate in 1900, exchanges her budding teaching career for marriage and motherhood. After the war, her daughter Margaret marries an American and they have a daughter, Jackie, who becomes an archetypal 60s rebel. When Jackie can’t face being a single mother, it is decided that her baby, Rosie, will be brought up as Margaret's daughter.

 
Keatley’s play is about the choices we make which determine the course of our lives and how it is never too late to change. Looking at the social and professional place of women, it explores the belief that being a mother is at odds with being a professional success. This is a powerful story of love and jealously between mothers and daughters told through the stories of four generations of women.
 
Director Paul Robinson says, I have wanted to direct My Mother Said for over fifteen years. It’s a timeless and universal play and, unbelievably, it’s the most performed play ever by a female playwright. It’s got four incredible female characters and of course it’s a play about women but not exclusively. It’s really about the Larkin truism that “they f*** you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do…” but it improves it. The play suggests that, while it’s incredibly hard, we can break the generational cycles of abuse in which we become trapped.

 
Notes to Editors

Paul Robinson
 

Paul Robinson trained as a director at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and received an Arts Council Bursary to the Manchester Royal Exchange. He was then selected to attend the National Theatre's Advanced Directors' Course and was Staff Director at the National Theatre for three years. In 2006 Paul became Joint Artistic Director of new writing powerhouse Theatre503 where he took on sole leadership in 2012. He has been twice nominated for Best Artistic Director at the Off West End Awards in 2014 and 2015 and has introduced the acclaimed Second Look programme, Trafalgar transfer season and the inaugural Theatre503 Playwriting Award.

Paul's recent productions of And Then Come the Nightjars, A Handful of Stars and Land of Our Fathers, the latter two transferring to Trafalgar Studios, received 4 and 5 star reviews in The Guardian, Times, The Independent, The Telegraph and Time Out and garnered a total of nine Off West End Award nominations including Best Director.

 
For Theatre503: And Then Come the Nightjars, A Handful of Stars, Land of Our Fathers, The Life of Stuff, Desolate Heaven, Life for Beginners, The Swallowing Dark, Salts Meets Wound, They Have Oak Trees In North Carolina (503/Radio4), The Lifesavers (Colchester/TMA Award Nomination), Manor House (Latitude Festival), Porn: The Musical (Best New Musical Award, The Offies), Epic (Latitude Festival) and The Charming Man (Best Director nomination, The Offies). Other theatre credits include: Big Sean, Mikey and Me (Pleasance, Edinburgh), Falstaff (NT Cottesloe), Duck Variations (NT Olivier), Hello and Goodbye (ETT/Trafalgar Studios), Breakfast with Mugabe (Ustinov Studio Bath), Who Killed Mr Drum? (Riverside Studios), World's End (Pleasance/Trafalgar Studios) and the West End transfer of Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll.
 

Tara Finney

Tara Finney qualified as a corporate solicitor before starting her theatrical career as Resident Assistant Producer at Theatre503. After Theatre503, Tara was Producer at Iris Theatre, leading on two open-air summer seasons in the grounds of St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. Tara also spent 18 months as Associate Producer at Company of Angels where she line produced Theatre Cafe Festival, their flagship, pan-European theatre festival supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union, and general managed World Factory, a co-production with METIS, New Wolsey Theatre and the Young Vic.

 
Her independent work includes Land of Our Fathers and the critically-acclaimed debut play by Phoebe Eclair-Powell, WINK, which is set to transfer to New York for the Brits Off Broadway festival. She also recently produced The Natives by Cat Jones and Matthew Booth for the Old Vic New Voices Festival and is currently developing a new play by Luke Barnes at Park Theatre. Tara is part of the Stage One network of commercial producers.
 
All enquiries, high res images and further information:

 
Lauren Macready, Chloé Nelkin Consulting
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W: www.chloenelkinconsulting.com