Eleanor Bron will return to the stage this winter to star in the European premiere of award-winning Australian playwright Tom Holloway’s devastating historical drama Forget Me Not.
Steven Atkinson’s production will play at the Shepherd’s Bush venue from 8 December to 16 January and tell the little known story of the 3000 British children who were sent to Australia between 1945 and 1968 after being told they were orphans.
Arguably most well known for her long standing role in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers, Bron will make her stage return after a five year break following 2010’s The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse and 2007’s All About My Mother at the Old Vic.
The actor, who is famously rumoured to have inspired the lyrics to The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby following her appearance in the pop group’s film Help!, has appeared in an extensive list of iconic films through her career, with credits including Alfie, Women In Love and Hyde Park On Hudson.
She will be joined in the challenging drama by EastEnders’ star Russell Floyd, London stage and RSC regular Sarah Ridgeway (The Cherry Orchard, Young Vic; The Comedy Of Errors, Shakespeare’s Globe) and Sargon Yelda, whose recent stage credits include Light Shining In Buckinghamshire and Dara at the National Theatre, and the Royal Court Theatre’s Teh Internet Is Serious Business.
A co-production between the Bush Theatre and director Atkinson’s company Hightide Festival Theatre, Forget Me Not promises to unearth “a secret buried by time that, in turn, exposes a world of historical injustices currently in the limelight”, revealing the reality of the lives of the orphans who were sent to the other side of the world with promises of warmth and fresh air, but were met by neglect and abuse.
Forget Me Not will play at the Bush Theatre following the venue’s RADAR new writing festival, which runs from 11 to 26 November.