Pauline at Pleasance Courtyard

Pauline is the story of three generations of women in one family - and the story of the writer who went digging in the secrets file in order to bring them all on stage. Witness a brutally honest and joyfully hilarious glimpse into what it has meant to be a woman in the Bentinck family as far back as 1921. In 1967 Pauline prematurely died from an overdose, and fifty years later Sophie found and read her diaries. This led to a journey of self-discovery, exploring mental health, loneliness and half a century of female voices, with no holds barred. Actress and writer Sophie Bentinck said: Im the thirty-four year old daughter of Anna, who is the seventy-four-year-old daughter of Pauline. Pauline is dead, Anna has Alzheimers; I am writing our story.Over the pandemic many families were forced to bury their dead without proper funerals or goodbyes. Loss does not always mean physical absence, it can be psychological too. As we begin to take stock of the impacts of Covid, Sophie attempts to combat them and shine a light on some of the darker times. From the postponement of this show in 2020, to the ambiguous grief of losing someone to Alzhiemers as well as to suicide, Pauline charts Sophies journey, against all odds, to get on that stage at the Fringe and tell the story of all of the women whose shoulders she stands on.