Left with a cryptic note, a pearl, and three annoying oysters for company, MERMALADE is determined to make sense of it all. She’s brave enough to approach the biggest forces in the universe. She’s strong enough to confront those that get in her way. But is she wise enough to find her answer?

Add three life size Oysters as narrators, cameos from the Moon, Sun, Stars, Thor (God of Thunder), a beach setting, a splattering of pop music and one strong-willed 11-year-old girl that never quits and what do you get?

Unlike traditional fairy tales, MERMALADE’s story holds no moral decree. In the Socratic Spirit, the show offers more questions than answers with WHY? being at the top of the list.

Why does everyone tell me what to do and feel?
Why is a pearl so special?
Why do I have to keep asking “WHY?”

Laura Stevens adapted Mermalade for the stage based on a children’s book written and published by Edinburgh-based writer Clare Cockburn-Martin. The script combines the voices of the two women, intertwining and diversifying to tell the tale. What is so special is that the universal themes that first touched them to create both the story and the play has produced something truly different and enduring – like a pearl itself – as well as a rare creative friendship.