SALT, ROOT AND ROE opens Donmar Trafalgar Season 2011

The second annual Donmar Trafalgar season opened this week with Hamish Pirie's production of SALT, ROOT AND ROE starring Anna Carteret and Imogen Stubbs.

Tim Price's new play follows Menna (Imogen Stubbs), who returns home to rural Wales to look after her mother Anest (Anna Carteret), and her mother's twin sister Iola (Anna Calder-Marshall) who is suffering from dementia. It is a heartbreaking, humorous tale of love and family set against the backdrop of the North Pembrokeshire coast.

SALT ROOT AND ROE continues at the Trafalgar Studios until 3 December 2011. Tickets can be booked here.

The play received fantastic notices, in particular for its trio of leading actresses. Here's what the critics had to say:

* * * * The Independent, Evening Standard, Whatsonstage, The Arts Desk

"Hamish Pirie’s production boasts excellent performances from its cast"
Dominic Maxwell - The Times

"The Donmar's second season at the Trafalgar Studios... gets off to a cracking start with this lovely new play by Tim Price"
"a comically distraught and very touching Imogen Stubbs"
"Anna Carteret brings a moving dignity to the anguish and determination of [Iola's] unafflicted sibling"
Paul Taylor - The Independent

"The acting, in Hamish Pirie's well-judged production, is also first-rate"
Michael Billington - The Guardian

"Anna Carteret touchingly conveys the unconditional love of Anest for her sister."
"Imogen Stubbs memorably suggests the gnawing anxiety of a woman who has been infected by her husband’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, but who gradually comes to envisage a new and saner life."
Charles Spencer - The Telegraph

"The strength of the production lies in the performances. Stubbs is precise and eloquent, giving a niggling specificity to Menna's irritating mannerisms. As Anest, Anna Carteret has the air of a soothsayer"
Henry Hitchings - Evening Standard

"an ideal inaugural production in the second season of Donmar Trafalgar"
Michael Coveney - Whatsonstage

"Imogen Stubbs is magnificent as the bewildered daughter of Anna Carteret’s equally touching sister to Iola"
Mark Shenton - The Stage