The Uplifting Message Behind The Darkness Of 'Masquerade'

Performing is what Dallimore does. Known for performance as Glinda in the original London production of Wicked, and has also been no stranger to STC stages closer to home; earlier this year she appeared alongside Kate Mulvany in Bell Shakespeare’s production of Tartuffe.

However, her relationship with Mulvany – who has written the play in which Dallimore will next appear, an adaptation for stage of Kit Williams’ picture book Masquerade – extends much further back than the Molière of a few months ago. “I’ve known Kate about ten years and we’re pretty close friends so... it’s a great honour to be able to tell her story, and a great responsibility too.”

 "I think if you’ve got a strong enough story it should hold for anyone of any age.

As a child suffering from cancer and confined all too often to hospitals Mulvany found an altogether different, more expansive world in Williams’ book, a gift from her godmother Tessa. She told Williams the tale of the power his story had on her firsthand when she requested the rights to adapt the book; he agreed on condition her story became part of the one she was telling.

“He’s obviously a very astute person and realises how much more interesting a work it would be with Kate’s story intertwined,” says Dallimore. “It changes it from being just an adaptation of a kid’s book into something with so much more depth and complexity and so many more layers. I think if you’ve got a strong enough story it should hold for anyone of any age.”

The collision of biography and picture book mean that Dallimore’s character is not just the mother from Williams’ original, but Tessa too. “I try not to think too much about the biographical person that I’m playing and what I’m doing really is, as a mother myself, putting myself in that position of what it’s like to have a sick child and to try and do your best.

“It’s tough, but there’s a lot in the piece that is very uplifting, so although it is dark subject matter in one sense, the way that Kate has handled it makes it very easy to deal with, to accept, because there is so much beauty and so much optimism and fun and play in the work as well. So, you know, it’s not one of those terrible hospital drama plays where you’re just grieving the whole time, there’s lots of singing and dancing and a great sense of the beauty of love under difficult circumstances which is very warming, I think.”