Dear Loll: A Wartime Marriage in Letters

“I thought I might have to go on without you”

Rosa Hesmondhalgh returns to Keswick (following her star turn as Lizzie Bennet in Pride and Prejudice) with this beautiful, true love story, that celebrates the resilience of ordinary lives in extraordinary times.

Co-starring Charlie Hamblett (SAS Rogue Heroes), Dear Loll tells the story of Manchester Guardian journalist, Gerard Fay, called up as an ordinary soldier in the summer of 1940, while his wife Alice or ‘Loll’ (short for Lollipop) remained in the north of England.

Dear Loll brings to the stage the candid and compelling correspondence between the young couple, recently discovered by their relatives.  The thousands of intimate letters are their only means of communication and are full of drama, humour and emotion. Writing virtually every day, sometimes twice a day, their correspondence over four years is a previously unheard testimony to the experiences of ordinary people in World War II and gives a fascinating insight into how one couple survived, both physically and mentally.

Dear Loll explores the warp and weft of a marriage, and the loneliness of separation – a grief that was shared by tens of thousands.

With live onstage music from the Le Page Ensemble

Adapted by Rosanna Greenstreet and Matthew Fay

Director Judy Reaves

Music arranged by David Le Page