Memory of Water Extends Run as Bond Leaves

Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water, which opened last month at the Vaudeville with its triumvirate of female stars - Alison Steadman, Samantha Bond and Julia Sawalha - has extended its run by six weeks. The show is now booking to 22 May.

But those who want to see Samantha Bond - as middle sister 'Mary' in the tale of three sisters dealing with their mother's death - will have to move quickly. Bond leaves the cast on Saturday 20 March to join Dame Judi Dench for the Broadway transfer of David Hare's Amy's View, in which she plays another daughter of another dominant mother, a role Bond made her own when the play opened at the National Theatre in 1997 and later transferred to the West End.

In The Memory of Water, Bond will be replaced by Stella Gonet, who is best known for her role in British television series The House of Elliott.

The Memory of Water premiered at the north London Hampstead Theatre in 1996. The play has toured the UK and had successful runs in Chicago, at the prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre, as well as in New York, Munich and Toronto. The Memory of Water is Stephenson's first play. Her second, An Experiment with an Air-pump, was produced by Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre in February 1998 and ran most recently at the Hampstead Theatre. It was joint recipient of the 1998 Peggy Ramsay Award for New Writing. Stephenson is currently under commission to the Hampstead Theatre and the RNT.

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