Penelope Skinner's
Linda opens with the title character bemoaning the fact
that cosmetics for women over fifty are regularly advertised with images of much
younger women. There'd be irony in the 55-year-old Linda being played by an actor
ten years younger, if it weren't for the fact that she's a very last-minute
replacement: When Kim Cattrall pulled out of the production with less than a week to
go, the Royal Court turned to Noma Dumezweni, who'd only recently worked with
director Michael Longhurst, and who's due to make her own directorial debut there
next year. Dumezweni's won an Olivier, although hopefully she doesn't bring it up in
conversation
quite as often as Linda does the marketing award she won ten
years ago. She's head of branding at a beauty company, and her "Changing the world,
one girl at a time" campaign helped turn them from an obscure brand to a world
leader, with a charity arm that funds self-confidence workshops for young women. Now
that she's over fifty herself, her new project is for the company to stop women her
age from feeling invisible, both in their outreach programmes and in the way they
market their products.
