Joanna Murray-Smith’s unsettling play is about infidelity, Honour, opens at Ilkley Playhouse on Monday 8th July in the Wildman Studio.
The play is seen from the perspective of the three women involved: the wife, the lover and the daughter.
George and Honor have been happily married for thirty-two years. She is a contented housewife whose early literary promise has been sidelined by marriage and family life; he is a well-respected journalist. They are a middle-aged, middle-class couple with a perfect understanding of each other.
Their daughter is graduating from university and they’re ready to move on to the next stage of married life. Then an ambitious, young female journalist – on an assignment to ‘profile’ George – quite deliberately seeks to undermine their relationship and their understanding of each other. As her husband succumbs to Claudia’s charms, Honor is caught up in the destructive whirlwind that tears apart her domestic idyll. The fallout is dreadful – but beautifully and convincingly portrayed in all its painful consequences.
Joanna Murray-Smith says of the play: “I wanted to put centre stage a middle-aged woman who has willingly sacrificed her life for marriage and is abandoned at the very point where she should be reaping the rewards of that devotion. It’s a poignant place to be.”
Honour runs until Monday 8th to Saturday 13th July, tickets are available from ilkleyplayhouse.co.uk and the box office (open Mon-Fri 12-3pm) on 01943 609539.