National treasure Su Pollard returns to the stage with tour of HARPY

Photo credit: Andrew Searle

TV personality and national treasure Su Pollard (Hi-De-Hi!), who is currently appearing on BBC’s Celebrity Masterchef, will reprise her role in a brand new production of the one-woman Edinburgh  Fringe hit, Harpy.

Previously scheduled to run in 2020, the production makes a welcome return  as part of a new countrywide tour.  

Written by award-winning playwright Philip Meeks, the play was originally crafted with Su Pollard in mind.  This exciting reinterpretation will be helmed under the direction of Abigail Anderson.

A tour-de-force performance from Pollard, Harpy is a heart wrenching exploration of one woman’s struggles with mental health and loneliness, manifesting itself through extreme  hoarding. At heart it’s a bittersweet dramatic comedy, which showcases a grittier side to the Su Pollard of the eighties, and also asks us to look beyond our prejudices against those who appear  to disrupt the norm.  

Pollard said: “I am beyond excited to be bringing Harpy across the country at last - we've waited  a long time! It’ll be terrific to be performing for a live audience and connecting with people once  again, bringing this beautiful play to new audiences. Entertainment is essential, especially after  the year we’ve had, and I can’t wait to get back on the road.”

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 junk 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. 

The tour opens at Portsmouth’s King’s Theatre on 28 & 29 September, before visiting Hull, Horsham, Margate, Maidstone, Malvern, Durham, Wellingborough, Sale, Buxton, Bury Saint Edmunds, Middlesbrough, Alnwick, Musselburgh, Blackpool, Leicester and Taunton.