New spin on an age-old tale


New spin on an age-old tale

Conrad Astley
31/ 3/2006

ALTHOUGH Joanna Trollope's novels have frequently been turned into TV adaptations, after decades as a best-selling novelist she has only just found her way onto the stage.

The author said when the producers approached her about turning Marrying The Mistress into a play she was in no doubt about why they chose that novel.

"I think it was the title," she said. "And also because the subject matter is about the eternal triangle of a man, his wife and his mistress.

"Although one hopes not everyone has been involved in that situation, everyone has a view on it. I've seen the production several times in different theatres and the conversation in the bars during the interval is pretty lively.

"There's some guilty faces, but there's a scene in which a woman stands up to her mother-in-law, and that always seems to get an interesting response."

The story is based around distinguished judge Guy Stockdale, played in the production by Jeremy Clyde who appeared in Dr Zhivago.

After 40 years of marriage he leaves his wife Laura to marry his much younger mistress, with whom he has been having an affair for the past seven years.

Not surprisingly, the decision has a huge effect on the family, and is felt by the couple's children, their children's partners and even their grandchildren.

But, while this may seem like familiar territory, Trollope looks at the story from a slightly unexpected angle.

"The traditional idea is the man's always in the wrong, the wife's always in the right and the mistress is a wicked woman," she said. "I'm saying - maybe not.

"Everyone will go into the theatre with a view coloured by their own situation. It's not really a gender thing, it's about what's happened in your own life."

Trollope's novels have often been noted for their acute observations, and the author was keen to point out that plenty of research had gone into the original book

"I talked to men who had mistresses, women who had been mistresses, and wives who had been left for mistresses," she said.

"I talked to young men about their mothers, which was interesting, and daughters-in-law about their mothers-in-law, which was very interesting.

"Because I'm not a journalist no-one's ever turned me down. I say I'll destroy all their contact details and they're quite safe.

"When the book comes out they sometimes phone me saying they didn't recognise themselves in it, and they sound quite disappointed, but I tell them that's the point."

While audiences have become familiar with televised versions of her works, such as The Choir, Other People's Children and The Rector's Wife, Trollope said she now much preferred theatrical adaptations.

"I'm grateful to the TV," she said. "But they tend to take it away and do their own thing with it. With the stageplay it's real people on the stage saying my words to real people in the audience. It's closer to reading.

"It's a much more immediate and closer experience. It's wonderful sitting in the audience."

Although she remains one of Britain's most popular authors, this is not a point which critics usually agree with the public on.

Her books have often been dismissed for representing a cosy view of genteel middle England and Salman Rushdie once told her that the media, having built her up, would inevitably knock her down - in her case because she was "thin, posh and popular".

Journalists even developed a shorthand for describing her literature, dubbing her "Queen of the Aga saga" - a term she is incredibly irritated by.

"It's one of these patronising terms like chick lit," she said.

"It's suggesting that women read for escapism, whereas we read to learn about human beings, and it's good that someone does because I'm not sure men read too much.

"But things seem to be changing. At the last book signing I did there were a lot of men who were buying the book for themselves, and asking me to sign it for them."

Marrying The Mistress is on at The Lowry from April 11- 15.


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