By Grace Hatchell
There are some holidays where the hotel isn’t quite what it looked like in the brochure.
Perhaps the buffet is questionable. The pool is suspiciously cold. Or your room has a delightful view of the bins.
And then there is Suria’s holiday.
She’s gone to Türkiye out of season with two teenage children, a 20-year-old travel guide and an audiobook about grief.
Her husband Dan hasn’t come.
Because he’s dead.
So, yes. The dodgy buffet suddenly doesn’t seem quite so important.
A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood comes to London’s Lion & Unicorn Theatre from 1–5 September 2026, taking audiences on what is described as the worst holiday Suria has ever taken – and somehow finding laughter, warmth and tentative hope amongst the grief.
Originally created by Omar Khan and written by Rae Mainwaring, this new stripped-back production is directed by Andrew Breakwell and stars Liz Jadav as Suria.
Now, grief is a funny old thing.
Not funny ha-ha, obviously. Although sometimes, inconveniently, it is.
It doesn’t arrive with a sensible instruction manual saying: “Welcome to grief. Please proceed to Stage One and complete the following tasks.”
Suria certainly hasn’t received one.
She’s not ready to “move on” – whatever that’s supposed to mean – but she would quite like something to make everything feel a little bit better.
The available options apparently include an empathetic stranger, four shots of Baileys, screaming into a pillow or throwing herself off a cliff.
I can’t officially endorse all of those.
Although Baileys has had some excellent Christmas marketing over the years.
Very much based on a true story, A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood doesn’t appear interested in tidying grief up and putting a nice bow around it. Instead, it explores the messy, lonely, occasionally absurd reality of losing somebody, while allowing humour to exist alongside sadness.
And I rather like that.
Because sometimes theatre dealing with difficult subjects can become so determined to be Important Theatre that everybody in the audience becomes frightened to move their chair.
This sounds different.
The production invites its audience to laugh and cry in recognition, and perhaps even make some new friends along the way. There’s also no great rush to shove everybody out of the door the moment the lights come up: audiences can stay afterwards for a conversation or simply take a moment following what the company freely admits is an emotional hour.
Liz Jadav knows Suria rather well by now.
She previously performed the role in Omar Khan’s 2025 tour of the play, and the response to that production persuaded her to bring the story to new audiences through a sustainable and affordable new version. It launched at Nottingham Arts Theatre in June 2026, where post-show conversations and audience feedback reinforced the company’s belief in the importance of telling the story.
This time Jadav isn’t only performing – she’s producing too, for the first time.
And she’s certainly not arriving without a few theatrical miles on the clock.
Her stage credits include Hamlet at the National Theatre, Pygmalion at the Old Vic, The Tempest with the RSC and Twelfth Night at Stafford Gatehouse. Television audiences may also recognise her from the likes of Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, Sex Education and Unforgotten.
Director Andrew Breakwell brings decades of theatre experience to the production, including his longstanding association with Nottingham Playhouse, where he has previously been Director of Roundabout and Education and has been an Associate Artist since 2012.
Behind the production is Truthful Tales, established this year by Jadav. While initially created to produce this one-woman play, the company’s wider ambitions include reflecting reality, challenging audiences, encouraging excellence, exploring ideas and creating work sustainably.
That’s quite a mission statement for a company that’s only just got its coat off.
But perhaps the most interesting thing about A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood is that it doesn’t promise to teach us how to grieve.
There isn’t really a beginner’s guide.
There’s no correct timetable. No magic point at which you’re officially supposed to have “moved on”. And presumably no chapter entitled “Take Two Teenagers to Türkiye and Everything Will Be Fine.”
Instead, Suria’s story seems interested in something much more human: what happens while you’re trying to work it out.
Sometimes that’s heartbreaking.
Sometimes it’s ridiculous.
Sometimes, apparently, it involves four shots of Baileys.
And sometimes you might discover that you’re not quite as alone as you thought.
A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood runs at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town from Tuesday 1 to Saturday 5 September at 7.30pm. The production runs for approximately 60 minutes, with an optional post-show conversation, and tickets are £15 standard or £13 concessions.
Just perhaps don’t book Suria as your travel agent afterwards.
Grace x
https://www.thelionandunicorntheatre.com/whats-on
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