Reading Time: 2 minutesDespite multiple portraits hanging on London’s hallowed gallery walls, famous actress, celebrity and
author Mary Robinson has yet to have her contemporary cultural zeitgeist. Enter stage left, Perdita.
Written by Sophie Todd, who also plays the titular protagonist, the first half of the play deals with
Robinson’s youth as a teenager wedded to drunken gambler Thomas Robinson (played by Kevin Martin Murphy). We see her follow him all the way to debtor’s prison with their newborn child Maria where her writing is so popular it neatly pays off their debt and she returns to the stage to be mentored by bringing David Garrick out of retirement. Here she flourishes, although we never really see her on stage.