PAULINE is Coming To London's Vault Festival This Month

From Breakthrough Memoir award winner Sophie Bentinck comes Pauline, a new comedy drama about finding your nan's suicide note. Written and performed by Bentinck and directed by Fred Wienand (Twelfth Night, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre).

This powerful autobiographical piece explores learning to dance with the skeletons in your family closet. Pauline is the story of three generations of women in one family - and 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. Runner up at the prestigious Screenshot 2020 competition, the judging panel which included Olivia Colman and Lolly Adefope, said of Pauline "it is important this story gets told" and Phoebe Waller-Bridge praised the play as "captivating."

Sophie was also selected by acclaimed writer Cathy Rentzenbrink as Curtis Brown's Breakthrough Memoir Scholar for the adaptation she is writing of the play. Following an Off West End nomination for Best Theatre Show, the opening night of Pauline's post Edinburgh transfer was attended by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Bill Nighy. 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: "I'm the thirty-four year old daughter of Anna, who is the seventy-four-year-old daughter of Pauline. Pauline is dead, Anna has Alzheimer's; I am writing our story." Sophie continues: "Covid struck the night before I was due to perform my one woman show for the very first time. A show in which I tried to deal with the inherited trauma of losing my eccentric, guinness and champagne-loving grandmother to suicide. However, as I tried to keep the memory of Pauline intact during the pandemic, my mum's memory faded fast, following a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.

The show has now become, through interwoven conversations with mum and my nan's diary extracts ranging from 1944-1967, an endeavour to give a sense of the interlapping of memory: my own, my mother's and my grandmother's, before she decided she had nothing left to say." 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 Alzhiemer's as well as to suicide, Pauline charts Sophie's 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.

Notes to Editors Title Pauline Performance Dates Tuesday 28 Feb - Sunday 5 March (press welcome from 28th Feb)

Running time 60 minutes
Locations VAULT FESTIVAL, The Cage, Leake Street, London SE1 7NN

Tickets available from https://vaultfestival.com/events/pauline/ Prices £13.50 (full), £11.50 (concs)

CREATIVE TEAM
Writer and Performer Sophie Bentinck
Director Fred Wienand
Producer Amy Merrigan
Consulting Producer Emma Hall
Sound Designer Munotida Chinyanga
Lighting Designer Will Churchill
Stage Manager Megan McCarthy

Social @SophieBentinck (twitter), @SophieBentinck1 (instagram), #PaulinePlay

Age Guidance 12+ Content Warning references of suidice, mental health, dementia, drug abuse, alcoholism