Pondling

Madeleine is an ugly duckling but convinced she’s a swan. She spends her days on her grandfather’s farm hanging daisy chains on fences and befriending chickens, wearing frocks and black patent shoes and dreaming of the day when Johnno Boyle O’Connor will return her affections. But there’s nothing idyllic about this childhood.

Genevieve Hulme-Beaman in her one-woman play, shows us another story that shines a light through the cracks in Madeleine’s view of life. A strange lonely child who lives life in the grip of her own vivid imagination, one minute she is innocent and vulnerable, the next knowing and dangerous.