Su Pollard returns to Blackpool reprising her role in production of Harpy.

Su Pollard reprises her role in Harpy | other

National treasure and actress Su Pollard is coming to the Blackpool Grand Theatre this April, reprising her role in Harpy by award-winning playwright of Kiss Me Honey,Honey Philip Meeks.

Following her successful Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2018, this one-woman show presents a grittier side to the Pollard of TV fame, in a heart wrenching exploration of mental illness and loneliness among the elderly.

Harpy will be performed at the Grand Theatre on April 14.

Continuing on a career that has spanned four decades, Su Pollard gives a tour-de-force performance in this bittersweet dramatic comedy focused on a woman’s struggle with mental health and being alone, outwardly manifesting through extreme hoarding to retain memories of a time past.

The actress best known for her role as Peggy in the BAFTA award-winning sitcom Hi-de-Hi! said: " I am thrilled to be able to bring Harpy to a wider audience across the UK, having first performed it at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018.

"I hope the new audiences enjoy themselves as much as I’m enjoying revisiting this complex character.

"Philip Meeks’ writing is both funny and poignant, and many people have remarked at how relatable the content is, openly tackling issues of mental health."

The neighbours call Birdie a harridan and a harpy even though most of them have never even met her.

They see her obsessive hoarding as detrimental to the value of their own homes. For Birdie, saving what others regard as the junk from her own life allows her to make sense of the world around her; her possessions are memories of a time past.

Shunned by conventional society, she regards it as her duty to salvage these tiny histories that without her would be entirely forgotten.

Harpy is inspired by the retro cinematic sub-genre of Grand Dame Guignol – or ‘hag horror’ - wherein fading stars battled to survive by playing mad, potentially dangerous women or bewildered creatures in peril. Beneath their acting veneer were brave and brilliant women and Meeks is fascinated by their survival instincts.

This idea of struggling and fighting for what we believe in comes to the fore in Harpy which seeks to explore mental health, questioning what madness really is.

Tickets for the show on April 14 are available now from https://www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk/