Octagon Theatre Bolton, and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse announce the full cast for the 30th anniversary revival of Shelagh Stephenson’s Olivier Award-winning comedy The Memory of Water

The Liverpool Everyman and Octagon Theatre Bolton have today announced complete casting for the 30th Anniversary production of Shelagh Stevenson’s Olivier Award-winning comedy, The Memory of Water.

Lotte Wakeham (Artistic Director at Octagon Theatre, Bolton) will direct a stellar cast in this powerful and funny family drama including Vicky Binns (Coronation Street, Emmerdale), Victoria Brazier (The Book Thief, Octagon Theatre), Reginald Edwards (The Walrus Has A Right to Adventure, Liverpool Everyman), Charlie De Melo (Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare’s Globe), Helen Flanagan (Coronation Street), Polly Lister (Animal Farm, Around the World in 80 Days), Leah Marks (Vignettes 2025, HER Productions), and Charlie Ryan (The Jungle Book, Spring and Port Wine and Little Shop of Horrors, Octagon Theatre).

The Memory of Water opens at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton, Thursday 29 January – Saturday 21 February 2026 (press night 3 February), before transferring to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre from Wednesday 25 February – Saturday 14 March 2026 (press night 26 February). Tickets are now on sale.

Set in the Winter of 1996, as The Spice Girls topped the charts, football had failed to come home, and Dolly the Sheep had just been cloned, The Memory of Water tells the story of Mary, Teresa, and Catherine. Three sisters who return to their Northern childhood home for the first time in years, for their mother’s funeral. As they sort through clothes, keepsakes, and ghosts of the past, the whisky flows, resentments surface, and long-held silences crack open with unexpected laughter.

Hilarious yet deeply moving, The Memory of Water explores families, grief, and the unreliable stories we tell about our pasts. Winner of the Olivier Award for Best Comedy, Shelagh Stephenson’s modern classic remains as sharp, funny, and heartfelt today as it was when it premiered in 1996.

Following a collaboration on One Man, Two Guvnors in 2022, this exciting partnership once again brings together two of the North West’s leading producing theatres to celebrate one of the most beloved British plays of the past three decades.

Shelagh Stephenson’s plays for the stage include: The Memory of Water (1996) which premiered at Hampstead Theatre and transferred to the West End, winning the Olivier Award for ‘Best New Comedy’ in 2000; An Experiment With An Air Pump (1997) which won the Peggy Ramsay Award and was produced at the Royal Exchange, Manchester and Hampstead Theatre; Five Kinds Of Silence at The Lyric, Hammersmith (2000); Ancient Lights at Hampstead Theatre (2000); Mappa Mundi at the National Theatre (2002) and Enlightenment at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (2005) and Hampstead Theatre (2010). Shelagh won the prestigious Sloan Commission Award in New York in 2003, and in 2007, The Long Road played for two sell-out runs at Soho Theatre. Shelagh is currently under commission to write the third in her trilogy of ‘Cullercoats’ plays for Live Theatre. The first two were A Northern Odessey, produced at Live Theatre in 2009, and Harriet Martineau Dreams Of Dancing, which Shelagh co-directed (with Max Roberts) at Live Theatre in Newcastle in 2016. Before You Go, her feature adaptation of The Memory of Water was filmed in 2001, directed by Lewis Gilbert, and starring Julie Walters.

Shelagh is also a prolific writer of radio drama, including eleven series of the wry comedy How Does That Make You Feel? for Woman’s Hour. Her crime drama Broken English (Big Fish Productions) won ‘Best Original Series’ in the BBC’s 2021 Audio Drama Awards.

Her TV credits include Downton Abbey (one ep, S1), and the production draft of Enid for Carnival/BBC, Case Sensitive for Hat Trick/ITV, and Shirley for BBC2. Shelagh’s crime series Murder in Provence (adapted from the Verlaque & Bonnet series of books by M.L. Longworth), for Monumental Television/Britbox UK/Britbox North America, aired on ITV1 in July 2022 (it is currently available on ITVX). TV commissions include the pilot episode of Israeli changed format Stockholm, for Keshet, an adaptation of her own play Enlightenment for Red Planet, original drama Meadow Road for ITV Studios, an adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel Her Fearful Symmetry for Monumental, Witness A for World Prods, Inside Out for Touchpaper TV, and Exiles for WTTV/BBC.

Lotte Wakeham is Artistic Director at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton. Her directing credits include: Shirley Valentine (also Leeds Playhouse, Blackpool Grand & Dukes Lancaster); world premiere of The Book Thief (nominated for ‘Best Musical Production’, UK Theatre Awards & ‘Best Regional Production’, Whatsonstage Awards); European premiere of The Book of Will(nominated for ‘Best Director’, Off West End Awards); Little Shop of Horrors, Spring and Port Wine, One Man Two Guvnors, Peter Pan, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Seagulls, One Night In Bolton, See You At The Octagon (Octagon Theatre Bolton); The Book Thief (Curve & Belgrade); Jess and Joe Forever, Di and Viv and Rose, The World Goes Round, Adventure Playground (Stephen Joseph Theatre); The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson, The Buskers Opera (Park Theatre); The Hound of the Baskervilles (English Theatre Frankfurt/Jermyn Street; nominated for ‘Best Director’, Off West End Awards); Twelfth Night (UK tour); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Guildford Shakespeare Company); Sweet Charity (Leicester Curve); Danny the Champion of the World (UK tour); The Beautiful Game (Union); Upper Cut (Southwark Playhouse; Alfred Fagon Award nomination); Rumpelstiltskin (Theatre Royal Bath/MAC, Belfast); Lizzie Siddal (Arcola); Fair Trade (UK tour); The Kissing-Dance (Jermyn Street; nominated for ‘Best Director’, Off West End Awards); Austentatious (Landor).Lotte trained at the National Theatre Studio and spent a decade as Associate Director of Matilda The Musical for the Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford/West End/Broadway)

Lotte said:“The Memory of Water is one of those rare plays that makes you laugh out loud and then catches you off guard with its emotional truth. I’m thrilled to be directing this special 30th anniversary revival, and to be collaborating once again with our wonderful friends at Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse.

”Nathan Powell, Creative Director of Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, added: “This is a beautiful story about family — full of love, laughter, and the kind of chaos that feels instantly familiar. Stephenson captures how we all remember things differently, and how those memories shape who we are. It’s moving, funny, and deeply relatable — a perfect fit for the Everyman stage.”

The Memory of Water plays at Octagon Theatre, Bolton 29 January – Saturday 21 February 2026. Tickets are available here.