Suranne Jones pulls out of harrowing play
SURANNE JONES has apologised to fans after pulling out of a gruelling theatre production due to ill health, admitting its subject had “taken its toll”.
Jones had played Nancy, the mother of a girl who is abducted, abused and killed by a paedophile, in a Theatre Royal Haymarket production of the award-winning 1998 play Frozen.
In a statement, she said she was “so sorry” for missing the last four shows, having abandoned a matinee midway through after feeling dizzy.
“Anyone who knows the show knows it is a highly draining piece, and after three months and a sickness I just wasn’t able to end the run,” she said.
“SO GUTTED and SO SORRY to those I missed,” she added. “This show has taken its toll on me and the subject matter was deeply affecting.
“You as the audience experience it once and always say how you are moved and drained by it. I’m certain it has contributed to my feeling under the weather. We as performers always think we can push through and carry on but sometimes we just can’t.”
She disclosed she had attempted to return to the stage too early following an illness.
In a three star review of the Bryony Lavery play when it opened in February, Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph’s theatre critic, called the role of Nancy arguably Jones’s “toughest assignment yet”.
Jones will now take time to rest before moving on to film Gentleman Jack, a BBC drama about Anne Lister, a 19thcentury Yorkshire landowner sometimes described as Britain’s “first modern lesbian”.