NEWS! The Lady Gardeners are very excited to announce that 'In the Lady Garden' is heading to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer!

Two years after staging their original production of 'In the Lady Garden',  the trio - Deborah, Babs and Julia - all over 60, formed The Lady Gardeners.They are about to embark on an adventure of a life-time. Their play, 'In the Lady Garden', which they also
co-produce has been chosen, out of hundreds of shows from across the UK, as one of the seven Edinburgh National Partnership shows, supported by the Pleasance and Theatre Royal Plymouth. They are chuffed to bits and fizzing with excitement!

Never, in their wildest dreams, did they expect to be making their Edinburgh Fringe debut at their time of life!

Deborah said "We are so grateful to TRP and Pleasance for believing in us. Their support is a huge endorsement for older women. This feels like a pivotal moment in theatre."

The show will be previewing at Theatre Royal Plymouth (one of the country's largest leading regional theatres) in July before it heads up to Edinburgh where it will be performed throughout August at Bunker One, Pleasance Courtyard (one of the most iconic and popular venues at the Fringe). Tickets for both venues NOW ON SALE - see links below.
To find out more about The Lady Gardeners, click on their Link.tree button
PREVIEWS: 18, 19 & 20 July in The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth
EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL: 31 July - 26 August
at Pleasance Courtyard

THE LADY GARDENERS

Babs Horton Writer

Babs was Head of English in an adolescent psychiatric unit where she witnessed the power of literature in enhancing the experiences of fragile young people helping them challenge their thinking and move forward in their lives.                                                                She has seven published novels, her debut, 'A Jarful of Angels', won the Pendleton May First novel award and was shortlisted for Authors Club First Novel Award. Her first play 'Wings' was longlisted for the Bruntwood prize and 'In the Lady Garden' was performed in October 2022 in the Lab at Theatre Royal Plymouth. She has just completed her third play, Goose. 
Babs is a writing fellow for the Royal Literary Fund and has worked as a practitioner for Theatre Royal Plymouth, running writing workshops for the People’s Company and Acting Up.

Deborah Edgington
Director

It was eleven years ago when Deborah swapped her desk job at a regional theatre, where she had worked for almost ten years, to take up a place on the directing course at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 53. It was a bold move. But a year later, aged 54, she co-directed her first professional play, 'Muswell Hill' by Torben Betts. The production went on to transfer to the Park Theatre in Finsbury and received four-star reviews.Since then, she has gone on to direct the original production of 'In the Lady Garden', and in London her directing and co-directing credits include 'My Children! My Africa!' including its transfer to the West End's Trafalgar Studios; 'African Gothic'; 'The Son of a Precariat' and closer to home in Hampshire, 'The Seagull' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire' for which she received a best director nomination in the 2013 Daily Echo Curtain Call awards. In 2008, she co-founded one of the UK's first national writing festivals, 10x10, which she ran for ten years, and in 2019, she co-directed her first opera, 'La Boheme'. Her work has regularly garnered five and four- star reviews.

Julia Faulkner
Performer

Julia graduated from The Guildford School of Acting in 1983. In her early career she performed both in the West End and on tour in the UK. She took a break from acting to raise her children and did a degree with the Open University and joined the Workers’ Educational Association, where she organised ESOL and English classes.Julia returned to her acting career in her forties and appeared in musicals, comedies, dramas, pantomimes, and weekly rep.
Favourite roles include Alice in 'In the Lady Garden', Granny in 'Gangsta Granny', Sheila in 'Relatively Speaking', Ranyevskaya in 'The Cherry Orchard' and Bawd/Dionyza in 'Pericles'. 
Julia has recorded audio books, appeared in TV commercials, TV shows and short films - most recently playing Nurse in the award-winning short film, 'A Matter of Choice' (2023). In 2023 Julia directed a new play, 'Dal Segno' at Theatre at The Tabard.
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