The Knot of the Heart is a powerfully honest portrait of a young woman struggling with addiction. Returning home to her mother and sister, Lucy becomes self-obsessed and self-destructive as she simultaneously wants to end her drug habit and deny that it even exists.
'Why has this happened to us? Things like this don't happen to families like ours.'
Full of David Eldridge's trademark lyricism within everyday family life and interaction, The Knot of the Heart is a play where emotions are high and relationships are sensitively written. Beautiful and privileged, Lucy is enjoying a burgeoning career in television. But her social drug habit has become a serious addiction, casting a dark shadow over her future happiness. As her charmed life begins to slip away, Lucy comes to realise that the devoted support of her family does not come without a price.
Ultimately hopeful and redemptive, The Knot of the Heart is atmospheric and poetic without undermining the all-too-believable characters' realism.
Eldridge does not duck painful truths but nevertheless provides a modicum of hope as the three women face up to them. By delving unflinchingly into a specific, extreme case, he casts a fierce light on many a 'normal' family.
