‘When I got this part it was just such burst of positivity’
It’s going to be a remarkable way to start her career on the stage.
East Londoner Daisy Pros per is making her professional theatre debut in the lead role Connie Gifford in The Taxidermist’s Daughter at Chichester Festival Theatre.
The new play by Chichester’s best-selling author Kate Mosse, based on her novel, has opened Chichester Festival Theatre’s 60th anniversary season. And Daisy is thrilled to be part of it.
On screen she has appeared in The Devil’s Hour and Toast of Tinseltown, but this is her first play: “I went to East 15 Acting School and I graduated in 2020. It was a big shame. I didn’t get to finish my course as expected and I had to finish the final term on Zoom and with acting being a physical thing obviously it was hard. But I was lucky that I got to do my showcase in the January before the lockdown happened and I was one of the lucky ones that got an agent before everything changed and that wasn’t the case for a lot of people so that was good.
“Then obviously all went very quiet but then things started to pickup and this opportunity came along. I auditioned in January this year and when I got the part it was just such a burst of positivity. Everything seems so uncertain and with young actors, well it’s very difficult. I was starting to think that maybe people would go for the more experienced actors and would be maybe a bit scared of taking on new young actors, just because that is something that they can control, that whole idea of going for people who already had experience. So just to get this part now I just feel so incredibly grateful.”
Part of the fascination is that this is a new play: “So obviously I’m not trying to fill somebody’s shoes but we were lucky in that we had Kate with us for a few of the rehearsals and that meant I could ask her any questions that I wanted to ask. And I think we definitely had the perfect balance.”
The piece is set in 1912. In the isolated Blackthorn House on Sussex’s Fishbourne Marshes, Connie Gifford lives with her father. His Museum of Avian Taxidermy was once legendary, but since its closure Gifford has become a broken man, taking refuge in the bottle. Robbed of her childhood memories by a mysterious accident, Connie is haunted by fitful glimpses of her past. A strange woman has been seen in the graveyard; and at Chichester’s Graylingwell Asylum, two female patients have, inexplicably, disappeared.
“I am playing Connie and she is quite complex. During the play she goes through a lot. When we first see her she is having a tough time. Her father is an alcoholic and she is his carer in effect. She doesn’t have anybody else. But she’s had an accident and there is part of her life missing.
“She can’t remember it but then she does start to remember things and she is trying to piece together who she is. She doesn’t know who she is and it is very scary for her. She’s strong and she is completely different to the other girls at that time.
“She is alone. She is a carer. She is hiding the fact that her father is an alcoholic but she goes on this massive journey…”