Revival of Kay Mellor's acclaimed play A Passionate Woman at Leeds Playhouse

“I feel so honoured to be directing the play in Kay’s home city,” says Seddon. “It feels like a huge responsibility to be honouring her brilliant writing but in a way the script does most of the work for me. It is such a gift for a director and the actors are having a wonderful time with it. It does feel so special as it was such a personal story for Kay.”

The play’s protagonist Betty (played in the new production by Katherine Dow Blyton) is a passionate, doting mother who on the day of her son Mark’s wedding, locks herself up in the loft and refuses to come down. Mark, and Betty’s husband Donald are nonplussed by this and try to persuade her to descend from the roof space in time to get to the church. But Betty is communing with a ghost from her past, her lost love Craze, and considering what her future might be.

Famously, Mellor wrote the play after a candid conversation with her mother who made a surprising admission to her about a passionate affair that she had kept secret for years. When writing the play sometime later, Mellor tweaked certain elements in order to disguise her mother’s identity, but on the press night for the original production at the Playhouse, her mother sprang another surprise.

“A journalist asked Kay in the auditorium if Betty was based on someone she knew because it felt really personal,” says Seddon. “Kay said she couldn’t say, but her mum stood up and shouted ‘it’s about me.’ How brilliant is that?”

The main narrative is set in the 1990s, with flashbacks to the 1950s, as Betty reflects upon the decisions she has made and the opportunities that have passed her by. Despite being written three decades ago, the play’s themes are timeless and universal and it is sure to speak to audiences as eloquently as it did when it first appeared.

“I think more than anything it is the family dynamics that people can relate to,” says Seddon. “It is a mother and son, a husband and wife, a father and son and it’s also about getting older, looking back on your youth, and the regrets you might have about the things you have missed out on. It’s interesting when I first read the script, I wondered whether it might feel dated, but it doesn’t at all. At the core of the story is a mother who doesn’t want her son to get married. She doesn’t want to lose him. I think weddings are a time when things can get tense in a family – there is so much in the play, it is such a rich story.”

Seddon trained as a director at the Playhouse and staged her first show as writer and director Say Yes to Tess, a musical about how she ended up standing in the 2017 General Election, in the Bramall Rock Void studio at the Playhouse last year. "It feels exciting to now be unleashed onto one of the main stages,” she says. “It feels really special to be making this step in my career at Leeds Playhouse, where I feel so at home.”

Like Mellor, Seddon is firmly rooted in the city, as is the play, featuring an ordinary Leeds family living through an extraordinary, seismic day. “It is not just northern it is very specifically Leeds,” says Seddon. “Kay was such an icon of northern writing and offered so many opportunities to other northern creative people, it is such an honour to be able to celebrate her work and legacy."

A Passionate Woman is a play which defies strict categorisation – there are plenty of comic moments, but it also deals with powerful emotional truths and profound philosophical questions. “It is a really beautiful, fun and surprising night at the theatre,” says Seddon. “It takes you in so many directions. There are some fantastic technical tricks, it’s got magic and ghosts and it is very funny, full of dry northern humour. Alongside that we have these really complex and nuanced characters; Kay really understands these characters and her writing is so detailed and precise. For an audience there are so many different elements to enjoy.”

At Leeds Playhouse until June 10. leedsplayhouse.org.uk