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Park Theatre presents the World Premiere of 

Sydney & the Old Girl

By Eugene O'Hare

Miriam Margolyes

Born in Oxford, England in 1941 & educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, Miriam Margolyes is a veteran of stage and screen, an award-winning actress who achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic. Winner of the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence, she also received Best Supporting Actress at the 1989 LA Critics Circle Awards for her role in Little Dorrit and a Sony Radio Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her unabridged recording of Oliver Twist. She was the voice of the Matchmaker in Mulan & Fly, the mother dog, in Babe.

Major film credits during her long and celebrated career include Yentl, Little Shop of Horrors, I Love You To Death, End of Days, Sunshine, Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, Cold Comfort Farm & Magnolia. She starred in Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Modigliani, Istvan Szabo's Being Julia & Ladies in Lavender (dir. Charles Dance, with Dames Smith & Dench). Margolyes was Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (part II). In 2013 Margolyes played Lady Thyrza in The Legend of Longwood set in an Irish fantasy village and in 2014 she played Odamee Marshall in the heart- warming film Outlier.

Most memorable TV credits include, Old Flames, Freud, Life and Loves of a She Devil, Blackadder, The Girls of Slender Means, Oliver Twist, The History Man, Vanity Fair & Supply & Demand. She was Franny in the CBS sitcom, Frannie's Turn & was a Guest Star in Dharma & Greg & in the Miss Marple episode, Murder at the Vicarage. Her 2004 BBC TV documentary series about Charles Dickens in 2004; Dickens in America was a worldwide success. In May 2010, she starred in the UK TV series, Merlin. 2011 saw her playing Shirley Dunwich in Doc Martin. In Australia, during 2012 and 2013, she completed both series of The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries for ABC. In 2014 Margolyes plays naughty grandma Rose in Sky's comedy series Trollied. 2015 saw the third series of The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries, and Miriam worked alongside Richard Roxburgh in the acclaimed Australian hit-series, Rake & the English comedy series, Plebs. In 2016 Miriam joined an all star cast in The Real Marigold Hotel and the sequel The Real Marigold On Tour.  She also narrated ITV’s Lady C and the Castle.

Stage credits include Madame Morrible in both the London & Broadway productions of Wicked, Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit(Melbourne Theatre Company); Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest (Brooklyn Academy of Music) (dir. Sir Peter Hall); Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World (Sydney Theatre Company); The Vagina Monologues, Romeo & Juliet (dir. Sir Peter Hall, Los Angeles), She Stoops to Conquer & Orpheus Descending (London, dir. Sir Peter Hall); The Killing of Sister George, The Threepenny Opera (Tony Richardson) & her own award-winning, one-woman show, Dickens' Woman, performed at Festivals in Edinburgh, London, Sydney, Jerusalem, Santa Cruz, USA, New York City, Boston & all over India. Most recently, she starred in Theatre du Complicite’s West End production of Beckett’s Endgame, playing Nell, for which she won the Whatsonstage award for Best Supporting Actress for the second time.  She played The Duchess in the revival of Me & My Girl in December 2010. She starred in A Day In The Death Of Joe Eggat the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow. In 2012 Margolyes once again completed a world-wide tour of Dickens' Women starting in Australia and New Zealand and touring around the UK and the USA. Returning to Australia in 2014, she starred as Ana in the Adelaide State Theatre's highest grossing production of Neighbourhood Watch and in the Melbourne Theatre Company's one woman play I'll Eat You Last as the indomitable Hollywood Agent Sue Mengers. In 2015 Margolyes toured Australia with her one-woman show The Importance Of Being Miriam, a passionate discovery of words and music, just released as a CD.

Her voice work has been internationally acclaimed & she is regarded as the most accomplished female voice in Britain: she has recorded many audio books including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland & Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Matilda, Pinnocchio, The Worst Witch series, The Queen & I (one of the best-selling audio books in the world), The Little White Horse, The Sea, Troy & Wise Child. She voiced many TV documentaries, including The Human Body, & numerous commercials, the most famous probably being the Manikin Cigar ads, the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny & Dolly, the Chimp in the PG Tips Campaign. She is now the voice of Mama in the Dolmio TV commercials. She is also Nana Sheila in the Disney Mini Series Nina Needs To Go and Nina Needs To Eat, and The Weathersnike in Bottersnike & Gumbles (Netflix/CBBC).

Radio is a medium she excels in 2012-13 she completed series 1 & 2 of The Gloomsburys the radio parody of the Bloomsbury Group by Sue Limb for Radio 4.  2015 saw Series 3 coming to air with more of Vera Sackcloth-Vest and the rest of the Bloomsbury Set. Series 4 will be aired in 2017. In 2002, H.M The Queen awarded her the Order of the British Empire for her services to Drama. In 2013 she achieved Dual Citizenship by becoming an Australian citizen.

(Headshot (c) Jennifer Robertson)

Mark Hadfield

Theatre credits include: Tamburlaine (Swan Theatre); Road (Royal Court); The Libertine (Bath/ Theatre Royal Haymarket); Richard III (Almeida); The Painkiller (Garrick Theatre); The Meeting, Matchbox Theatre (Hampstead Theatre); Made in Dagenham (Adelphi Theatre); Jeeves and Wooster: Perfect Nonsense (Duke of York’s Theatre); Singing in the Rain (Palace Theatre); Uncle Vanya (Vaudeville Theatre); The Tempest, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, Man and Superman, Don Juan (Bath Theatre Royal); The Painkiller (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); A Christmas Carol (Nuffield Theatre); Peter Pan, The 39 Steps (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Talk of the City, the Seagull, Twelfth Night, The Canterbury Tales, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC); The Lion King (West End); Therese Raquin, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other (National Theatre); Donkey’s Years (UK Tour); Duchess of Malfi, Volpone (Greenwich Theatre); Into the Woods (Regents Park Open Air Theatre); Rookery Nook, Talent (Menier Chocolate Factory).

Television credits include: Outlander, Maigret, From the Cradle to the Grave, Trollied, Wallander, The Wyvern Mystery, People Like Us, The Vice, Headless, Foyle’s War, Doc Martin.

Film credits include: Girls Night Out, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, In the Bleak Midwinter, Felicia’s Journey, A Cock and Bull Story, Hamlet.

Vivien Parry

Theatre includes: Les Miserables (Queen’s Theatre); A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Shoemaker’s Holiday (RSC); The Girls (UK Tour); Half a Sixpence (Noel Coward Theatre); Top Hat (Aldwych Theatre); Blackthorn, Shakespeare’s Will, Great Expectations, Macbeth, Arcadia, The Crucible, Betrayal, Bedroom Farce, Abigail’s Party, The Norman Conquests (Clwyd Theatr Cymru); Memory (The Pleasance/59E59 Broadway); The Swing of Things (Stephen Joseph Theatre); Mamma Mia! (Prince of Wales Theatre); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Citizens Theatre); Boston Marriage (Octagon Theatre); The Ashgirl (Birmingham Rep); Sadly Solo Jo (Greenwich); Fame (Cambridge Theatre); Which Witch (Piccadilly Theatre); Blood Brothers (Phoenix Theatre).

Workshops include: Miss Trunchbull in Matilda (RSC); The Star Jar (National Theatre).

Film includes: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

TV includes: Holby City; Crash, Outside the Rules; The Bench; The Bill; Nuts and Bolts; The Comedy Show; Llafur Cariad; Dirty Work; Victorian Diary.

Radio includes: The Berlin Diaries; Touching the Linden Tree; The Tales of Lady Murasaki; The Starving Girl of Llanfihangel.

Writing includes: HRT (RSC).