'I didn't expect it so soon, that's all. It made it seem so final, all our lives, those decisions all irreversible, immortalised in a slideshow to a Coldplay track.' Helen is forty when she loses her husband. Her daughter Becca is fifteen when her dad dies. Now it's just the two of them... what do they do next? Unfolding through snapshots of a relationship over forty years, Helen explores the threads which bind mother and daughter together, how they damage each other, and how they come to each other's rescue. A play for two actors – about love, grief, and getting ashes stuck to your trouser leg – Helen by Maureen Lennon was shortlisted for the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. It was first produced at Theatre503, London, in 2023, in a co-production with Terrain, a company dedicated to promoting Northern artists and the stories they tell.
