Shakespearean actress Deirdre Compton has made a career playing luscious milkmaids, victims, fools and clowns. Meanwhile, her mother plays Desdemona, Titania and Lady Macbeth. They do not get on.

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‘The idea for Shakespeare’s Lost Women came to me while I was watching Love’s Labour’s Lost. In the second half, one of the men says the lovely Jaquenetta is pregnant and will marry Don Armado, an idiot Spaniard. I thought: What does Jaquenetta have to say?

 

'And that made me consider other Shakespearean women whose stories never really get closure, such as the Jailer’s Daughter in Two Noble Kinsmen (she doesn't even have a name) and the wonderful but foolish Nurse in Romeo & Juliet. She isn't even on stage in Juliet’s tomb to explain how everything went wrong.’

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First performed at Petersfield Shakepeare Festival 2017, this new production will tour from April 2019.