Lion and Unicorn Theatre – until 5th September 2026
Reviewed by Mike Linane
3***
A Beginner’s Guide To Widowhood is a one-woman play originally created by Omar Khan and written by Rae Mainwaring. It stars Liz Jadav as Suria who is on an out-of-season package holiday in Türkiye, with her two teenage children, a 20-year-old travel guide, and an audiobook on grief, but not her husband, Dan. Because he’s dead. She’s not ready to ‘move on’ (whatever that is), but maybe there is something that can help her feel better. An empathetic stranger? Four shots of Bailey’s? Screaming into a pillow? Throwing herself off a cliff?
Very much based on a true story, A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood is relatable, sad and funny, and gently and tentatively hopeful.
This is a beautifully written play that touches on all the emotions that are experienced by someone who has recently been widowed. Suria tries to stay strong for her children to help them cope with their grief (though they appear to be coping much better than she is). On the outside Suria is doing fine but on the inside she is missing her dancefloor soulmate so much as she reflects on their life together from the crummy first flat they lived in to when life got better and they started making plans together about what they would do once their children had left home and they would be alone together once more and could enjoy life again as a couple.
Things didn’t work out like that, of course, and Liz Jadav gives a wonderfully emotional yet controlled and highly nuanced performance as Suria. There are times you just want to give her a big hug and tell her how brave she is being, and that things are going to turn out all right in the end.
One of the big changes Suria has to adjust to in life is the way people look at her differently now she is a widow… the friends who don’t know what to say to her and now cross the road to avoid having to speak… the men who see her as fair game … these are just some of the challenges she has to deal with in the new situation she now finds herself in.
We probably all know someone who has been widowed much earlier than they expected. This play challenges how we dealt with them and how we maybe should have done things a bit differently.
This might sound like a depressing and sad play, but it really isn’t. There is plenty of humour in it and is life affirming and you will leave the theatre determined to do better next time.