After their acclaimed West End debut with Education Education Education, The Wardrobe Ensemble return to London with The Last of the Pelican Daughters, their latest devised show, following an Edinburgh Fringe sell-out and UK tour.
In folklore, pelican mothers feed their young on their own blood. In 2019, four sisters are trying to divide their mother’s house between them.
Joy wants a baby, Storm wants to be seen, Sage just wants to remember and Maya doesn’t want anyone to find out her secret. There’s a boot load of cheap prosecco, a whole ham from Waitrose and Dodo the yoga instructor boyfriend has made baba ganoush. Mum’s presence still seeps through the ceiling and the floors. The Pelican Daughters are home for the last time.
After the success of Education Education Education, about British education under New Labour – for which I chaired a post-show Q&A last summer at the West End’s Trafalgar Studios – The Wardrobe Ensemble grapple with family, inheritance and justice in this comedy about a family trying to come to terms with their mother’s death.
The Last of the Pelican Daughters is a Wardrobe Ensemble, Complicite and Royal & Derngate, Northampton co-production in association with Bristol Old Vic. It has been developed with Complicité: supporting the next generation of theatre-makers.
Terri Paddock founded WhatsOnStage.com and the WhatsOnStage Awards, running the company and its events from 1996 to 2013. Terri is also the author of two novels, Come Clean and Beware the Dwarfs, and has previously written for the Evening Standard, Independent, The Times and other national publications. She is renowed for her 'legendary' post-show Q&As and also produces the annual Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and acts as a digital, content strategy and event consultant for theatre, producers and other clients. She tweets about theatre at @TerriPaddock.
