THE TABLET | Mark Lawson

Imagine The Great British Bake-Off crossed with We Need to Talk About Kevin and you approximate Apples in Winter(Paradise in the Vault) by Jennifer Fawcett. In 65 minutes of real time, Miriam (Edie Campbell) makes and bakes an apple pie for her son, Robert, a double killer who has requested as his final meal pre-execution the sweet treat she always made for him from the family orchard.

Refused permission to home-cook - in case poisoning the filling “spares the state its ritual” - she struggles in the prison kitchen to slice apples with a blunt knife on a restraint wire. Fawcett perfectly judges the release of details of Robert’s crime and Miriam’s sense of maternal guilt. Thematic metaphors are also acutely placed: Eden, hidden maggots, America’s national dish, how far an apple may fall from the tree. Writing and performance electrifyingly explore the implications of having given birth to someone society sees as a monster to put this among my all-time Edinburgh highlights.

★ ★ ★ ★ The Scotsman

If you detect the comforting aroma of home baking emanating from the backroom Annexe at Paradise in the Vault, that’ll be Miriam lovingly baking one of her famous apple pies, slicing the fruit, rolling the pastry, meticulously threading the lattice top. Since it’s winter, however, the apples she has are far from the best. But then you don’t get to decide when your only son gets executed.

Prison wardens have warned Miriam that her son may not have the appetite to stomach the final meal he’s specially requested. But, even in the unfamiliar surroundings of the prison kitchen, with its awkward security protocols, she feels it’s her duty to honour his wishes.

Jennifer Fawcett’s solo play from Surrey-based LynchPin Theatre Company is a quiet, meticulous, understated affair, but its sense of a woman’s life devastated by blame and guilt slowly mounts through episodes ofavoidance, courage and, ultimately, resilience. It’s a slow-burn show, without doubt, but Edie Campbell’s careful, deeply sensitive performance unravels the woman’s trauma all the more vividly for its thoughtful pacing (and her American accent - no doubt with help from dialect coach Suzanne Parke - is uncannily convincing). There’s plenty here about motherhood and maternal obligation, about unbreakable bonds between parent and offspring, but it’s to writer Fawcett’s credit thatshe neither cushions the blow of the harrowing events she describes, nor stands in judgement over crime, blame or even the death penalty itself. Indeed, though Miriam’s clever on-stage cookery demonstration might seem like it’s there to convey motherly commitment, by the end it may have taken on a far darker significance.

Claire Parker’s direction is appropriately thoughtful and perceptive, and Elisabeth Tooms’s simple lighting design effectively traces the play’s gradually evolving moods. Apples in Winter stares guilt, grief and loss unflinchingly in the face, and for a modest offering, it delivers a considerable emotional blow.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Read About Stuff

Edie Campbell delivers a powerhouse live-cooking solo performance in Jennifer Fawcett’s five-star death-row drama. Claire Parker directs a haunting, profound examination of maternal love.

A desperate mother bakes one last apple pie for her death-row son in this profoundly human, affecting play from Jennifer Fawcett and Lynchpin Theatre. 

Miriam’s (Edie Campbell) son Robert is moments away from being executed, convicted of killing two teens in a drug-fuelled rage. Before he dies, his doting mother has one last ritual to carry out: to provide Robert with his favourite meal, her apple pie. 

Over 65 minutes, Campbell cooks, live, Robert’s final pie and delivers an absorbing monologue, brimming with pain and fury at her son’s impending death, struck with a raw grief as a mother in an unimaginable circumstance. 

This is not an ordinary kitchen for Miriam to cook in. A bleak, sterile, penitentiary setting is the location for Miriam’s final maternal act. It is not the right season for cooking apples, Miriam laments, as a sense of unease and anguish fizzes. 

Fawcett’s script, much like the pie, slowly crisps, gradually revealing the violence of Robert’s actions, but also the myriad perspectives Miriam has for her son. Is she a monster for loving him? She invites us to think so, and does not attempt to deflect blame or pardon Robert, but remains defiant about herself. 

Under Claire Parker’s direction, Campbell thrives, shifting from sweet baking tips to nostalgic reflections on Robert’s upbringing and lamenting his situation. It is a multilayered performance, and one in the Vault’s intimate space, which is completely absorbing. A neat touch is also the lingering aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg, which drifts as Campbell cooks. It immediately transports us to the nostalgia for her home kitchen, and a life and relationship lost. 

The decision to let the events play out in real time, watching Miriam cook along, is deftly haunting, as with each minute that passes, Robert’s last moments draw nearer. There are a couple of moments where this feels a bit forced, such as a fleeting fainting, but overwhelmingly Campbell, and Apples in Winter, lands. 

At its core, this apple pie drama is a deft look at a mother’s unrelenting, complex love of her son. While the doom hovers heavily over the piece, the rich dialogue and engrossing performance from Campbell create a piece as rich as her trademark dessert. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Under the Stars

In a prison kitchen, Miriam is making an apple pie. Not just any pie: the last meal requested by her son Robert, who has spent 22 years on death row and will be executed at midnight.

Jennifer Fawcett's award-winning Apples in Winter, presented by LynchPin Theatre, gives a voice to someone rarely considered in the aftermath of violent crime: the mother of the perpetrator.

Over 70 minutes, Miriam makes the pie entirely from scratch. And yes, she really cooks it. As Edie Campbell peels apples, rolls pastry and puts it into the oven, the smell gradually fills the auditorium. It's an extraordinarily effective theatrical device.

Initially Miriam is almost light-hearted, concentrating on the familiar ritual of baking. Gradually the layers are peeled away: Robert's addiction, dropping out of school and ultimately killing two teenagers. We see her grief, guilt and anger, questioning what she could have done differently while raging against those who blame her for the actions of the child she raised.

Campbell is phenomenal. Her emotional journey from practicality and denial towards something increasingly raw and devastating is beautifully controlled, all while baking an actual pie. Her American accent is so convincing that hearing her revert to her strong British voice at the curtain call is startling. An OFFIE finalist for this performance, and deservedly so.

Founded by Campbell and Jack Lynch, LynchPin specialises in seldom-heard voices, and Miriam's is exactly that. The play never asks us to excuse Robert's crime, but explores the terrible ripples it sends through another life.

I also loved Paradise in the Vault, tucked into the vaulted basement of Augustine United Church. The tiny, cave-like Annexe with its proper raked auditorium is a wonderfully intimate setting for this story.

Beautifully written, superbly acted and quietly devastating. An exceptional piece of theatre.

★ ★ ★ ★.5 The Student

Apples in Winter opens with the heartwarming image of a mother, standing in a kitchen, making her son his favourite home-baked apple pie. However, a few details come to taint this idyllic portrayal of maternal love. This is in fact the kitchen of a prison (Robert’s home for the last 22 years), and this is the last meal he will eat as he awaits his imminent execution on death row. 

Jennifer Fawcett’s writing captivates the audience in this 70-minute, hard-hitting one-woman play about the depths of a mother’s love for her son and the guilt that arises when he does the unthinkable. Miriam, played emotively and expressively by Edie Campbell, faces the difficulty of reconciling who Robert was a child with who he is now.

Directorial choices contribute to the heightened emotional impact of this performance. Campbell utilises the space of the kitchen, but never leaves it, as she chops apples, measures ingredients and rolls pastry. In doing so, Miriam is chained to the grounding normality of domesticity, connecting her to Robert through strings of familial love and nostalgia, even when the relaying of his violence distances her from him. 

Frequent changes to lighting and sound disrupt the audience’s perception of what could indeed be, at face-value, a regular kitchen setting. Instead, the sounds of prisoner’s footsteps and cell doors closing echo around the space, with warm lighting turning cold as Miriam replays that night in her head.

A digital clock is positioned in the corner of the stage. Along with the timer Miriam sets on the counter, and the perpetual references to the seasonal harvesting of apples, we witness the play’s delicate handling of time – and the bleak reality that Robert is running short of it. 

This play is a powerful depiction of the devastation that violent crime has, not only on its immediate victims, but also on the families of perpetrators. Campbell admirably illuminates Miriam’s impossible challenge of reconciling the love she holds for Robert with the guilt and responsibility that she holds for his actions. It is a play in which we feel heartbroken for a mother who gives everything to her son yet it isn’t enough. 

★ ★ ★ ★  Jamais Vu

Harrowing. Brilliantly so.

Edie Campbell is tremendous as Miriam, a mother whose son is set for execution. His last request? His mother’s apple pie.

The set and lighting design of this piece really help it to excel. A gobo creates the illusion of prison bars across the stage, subtle but effective. The clinical lighting paired with the striped back industrial look of the functioning kitchenette already reveals exactly where we are to those paying close enough attention.

When Miriam comes on, she is warm and clearly skilled in baking. With ease she recites to us the key to making the perfect apple pie all the while while doing it live on stage. She tells us about her son and his life growing up, there are ups and downs but like with every child, when is there not?

There is a sense of something wrong in the air. A tension. It comes more clearly to a head when Miriam moves to peel the apples, picking up a knife, only to find it attached to the table by a wire for safety - so no one can take it and wield it against another person. 

There is a shift in the play. After a few more moments, Miriam is done assembling the pie and now it needs to bake. She places it in the oven and here, she can finally step free of the kitchenette and move around more and here the play grows darker and darker. Again, there is another extremely effective use of a gobo to evoke trees.

Again, Edie Campbell is tremendous. She holds the stage well and treats the subject matter of the piece with the utmost care, never overacting or succumbing to easy emotion, her greatest strength is indeed how much she holds back and restrains herself with her outburst near the end feeling all the more deafening because of it.

A well executed piece of theatre and one not for the faint of heart. One that made multiple audience members cryas the smell of baked apples filled the auditorium.

MUST SEE SHOW FringeReview

The set is a kitchen. Within a few minutes we realise this isn’t an ordinary kitchen, but one inside a prison, where Miriam is making an apple pie – the last meal for her son, Robert, facing execution after twenty-two years on death row. Everything she needs is laid out in containers, plus three apples. It’s the wrong time of year for apples, she says; they won’t be as good.

As she measures, rubs in the butter (never anything but butter), and finally adds water to make the shortcrust, she talks about the apple tree in their garden, the one that produced the best apples, and how Robert always loved her pies. They were close, mother and son – she describes an idyllic childhood.

The pastry goes into the fridge to cool; there is much to be learned about good pie-making in this show. She turns to the apples, apples that aren’t as good as the ones from the tree, aren’t as good in winter. Picking up the knife brings her back sharply to the prison kitchen: it’s chained to the unit, so she patiently rearranges the worktop to accommodate the short chain, only find, frustratingly, that the knife is blunt. She adds her own mix of cinnamon and nutmeg, the combination Robert likes best, and reveals that the warden has told her the men often find they can’t eat their requested final meal at all -she hopes the smell of apples and spice might at least carry him back to childhood.

And the shortcrust comes out of the fridge.

With each stage of the making and baking, Claire Parker’s light touch direction sets up another layer of the story, we learn a little more of Robert’s childhood: his schooling, his poor relationship with his father, his gradual descent into drugs and crime to feed the habit, until finally Miriam reaches the night itself – the night he killed two young people, the night that led, inexorably, to this one.

Jennifer Fawcett’s writing is penetrating, unflinching, gentle and agonised by turns, a work of layers, each peeled away as Miriam peels away the apples. We encounter grief, loss, guilt andthe question every mother must ask when faced with a child who has committed any crime: ‘what did I do wrong?’

Edie Campbell takes us on an emotional journey from practical mother, doing her best for her son, the tension held in check by focusing on the one thing she can still do for him: bake. Gradually, the questions surface – the confusion, the regret, the guilt – in a heartbreaking performance of a loving, distraught mother.

As the clock counts down towards five o’clock, the time the pie must be ready, the wait for it to bake comes to mirror the wait for that final moment. The tension builds, supported by Elisabeth Tooms’s subtle lighting design that charts the play’s evolving moods. and Campbell shows us a woman for whom everything she thought she knew, everything she has managed to hold together for twenty-two years and more, is finally coming apart.

A must-see: a stunning performance in a powerful, unflinching play.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Musical Theatre Musings

Apples in Winter is a play by Jennifer Fawcett that deals with the intersection between grief and guilt and just how far a mother can be held accountable for their child’s actions. We meet a mother whose son is on death row and for his last meal he has requested her home made apple pie and that is why we find her at the start of the show, in the prison kitchen beginning the process of baking a pie.

It is often said that if you want someone to really talk, give them something else to really focus on and they will gradually begin to open up and this is exactly what this play feels like. At the start the focus is on the pie being made and the audience being taken through this process but as the clock ticks towards 17:00 the balance gradually shifts. We learn more about Robert, his crime and more importantly, the impact that this has had on Miriam. Fawcett trusts the audience to sit with her as these revelations emerge rather than rushing towards the inevitable conclusion.

The language used by Fawcett within the play is beautifully crafted, the discussion about rituals peppered throughout the piece is one example, the ritual that making the pie itself is and the personal history it holds for Miriam but equally Robert’s ritual now he is in jail and how Miriam herself echoes this and then there is the ritual that is coming and that Robert has spent 22 years on death row waiting for. Equally the analogy and irony of something being created by the mother of a death row inmate preparing for his final meal is not lost and whilst Miriam talks of the importance of food at other pivotal times in her life Fawcett credits the audience with the intelligence to make their own connections with the impending meal.

The show is also paced in a clever manner, whilst most of the audience arrive with some knowledge of the play the information is gradually revealed, drip-feeding the addiction, the crime itself and then the full details which keeps the audience’s full attention.

The show is a one woman show and Edie Campbell plays Miriam beautifully. She is unafraid to let silence do the talking sometimes as she continues to prepare the pie while her expression reveals what words cannot. A wry smile, a glance at the clock behind her or a moment of hesitation adds another layer beneath Fawcett’s carefully constructed text.

The set is a small kitchen worktop but as the play progresses you notice that things aren’t quite right. The knife is fastened to the worktop and as Miriam begins she takes time to familiarise herself with a kitchen that we soon discover is not hers. The room soon fills with the scents of nutmeg and cinnamon and then the smell of freshly baked apple pie. It is an inspired use of the senses turning baking into an uncomfortable reminder of why Miriam is there and helps transport the audience to the kitchen with Miriam.

Apples In Winter is a quietly powerful piece of theatre that trusts its audience to listen, observe and make their own connections. Fawcett’s writing gradually peels back the layers of Miriam’s story while Campbell’s nuanced performance ensures that every silence carries weight. It is a show that takes an everyday act and turns it into something poignant and thought provoking. A beautifully crafted exploration of grief, guilt and the impossible question of how much responsibility a parent can bear for their child’s actions.

★ ★ ★ ★ The Herald

A pie is only as good as the apples you make it with. In this play, that truism becomes a metaphor for the maternal lineage between mother and son, mother and an addict, mother and a murderer. 

Cooped in a penitentiary kitchen, baking an apple pie for her son’s final meal on death row, this mother agonises over that question of complicity as she relives her motherhood from labour, through murder, until her son’s almost-death, trying to understand when and why the apples began to rot. 

Edie Campbell plays this mother with the subtle devastation befitting a woman who has been sharing the guilt of her son’s violent crime for over twenty-two years. As she methodically measures flour or peels apples in her hands, we see the strained pragmatism that has kept her from insanity this long. “He still needs me, I’m his mother”, is her simple conclusion that convinces only until she puts the pie in the oven and is left with nothing to do but wait. 

Her routine distractions are broken sometimes by a sharp return to the present, like a knife tied down to the kitchen work bench by a metal cord, and other times by a slow silence. That silence falls over her sanity often with the darkening of the stage lights, though it seems almost too theatrical when we sense the mother’s deep trauma just as well in the quick cornered downturn of Campbell’s mouth. 

She is trapped, we gather, by an umbilical link that strangled any little subjectivity she had before her son was born. Now, she cannot differentiate between narcissistic identification and unconditional love. Her son’s death may well be her freedom though, seven hours before, the audience are given no assurance that will be the case. 

Any play that broaches the topic of capital punishment, especially one set in Southern USA, will always be political, but Apples in Winter is not explicitly so. Besides a line about “the state’s ritual”, the play is not a polemic. Instead, it presents the less told story of an innocent and implicated victim that says more about parasitic mother-son relationships than it does about corporal punishment. 

It is, by consequence, a moving and complicatedly human perspective in a debate that often veers very far from that. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The Real Chrisparkle

There’s nothing more wholesome than Mom’s Apple Pie and there’s no one with a bigger heart than Robert’s mother, who has devoted her life to giving her son the best possible start in life, full of love, security and natural home cooking. So it’s no surprise that we see her, making an apple pie for her son – the last one he will ever have; even if he doesn’t eat it, he will at least see it, smell it and recognise the love that created it. Jennifer Fawcett’s Apples in Winter is a riveting, emotional, elegantly written and truly honest play that plots the course of Robert’s life from birth to the present day, all seen through the eyes of his mother. An extraordinary performance by Edie Campbell takes us through all the emotions and lays bare a wounded heart that’s trying to make sense of it all. Acting and cooking at the same time too, which is always fascinating to watch! Unquestionably a must-see.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ UK Theatre Web

Beautifully crafted and presented this is a heart-breaking tale looking at the relationship of a mother with her son, 22 years on death row for killing two teenagers while robbing them for money to buy drugs. Issues of addiction, justice, forgiveness and love are brought into play while Miriam, the mother, bakes an apple pie in the prison kitchen for her son's last meal. Wonderful theatre.

★ ★ ★ ★★ North West End UK

Miriam (Edie Campbell) loves to bake pie, apple pie to be exact.  Baked with the apples from the tree in her garden that she lovingly nurtured, to ensure that the apples in her pie were of the best quality.  They should only be picked in September for the best apple pie…Robert loved her apple pie more than anything! 

Robert is Miriam’s son.  Robert is in prison on death row, and his execution has been organised for midnight on that very day.  His request for his last meal is for his mother to make the apple pie that he loves so much.  For Miriam, this request stirs up a tsunami of emotions, as she stands in the prison kitchen with her ingredients to make the homemade pie for her son.

Written by Jennifer Fawcett, and produced by Lynchpin Theatre Company, this solo performance focuses on the torment that Miriam experiences as she comes to terms with the fact that her son is not the little boy that she fed pie to when he was young. He is a grown man who has not made the best use of his life, and the question that she wrestles with is – was it my fault?

I will not give too much away about further details of the play, as you must go to see it for yourself.  The pacing of the play reveals the details slowly, almost as though Miriam is gradually acknowledging to herself, the person that her son is, rather than the thought of him that she has kept as a monument in her own mind.  Directed by Claire Parker, this decision to move slowly with the details, hitting the viewer gradually with another piece of the puzzle builds up the tension, and when the pie is finally made, Miriam realises that there is nothing more that she can do for her son. 

Campbell has been handed an incredible script, and excellent direction, and her on-stage presence begins as comforting; a mother making a pie for her son, it’s his favourite, how lovely!  But the essence of the performance comes from her gradual realisation, that she no longer needs to be the strong matriarch, and that she can now admit that her son is not a good person, and that she must finally accept this and let him go.

The whole play was an emotional experience, because of the excellent writing, direction, performance, but also the staging, all fed in to it.  As a fellow human being, I felt her pain. Unwittingly being placed in this predicament, and it did not go away overnight, her son was on death row for twenty-two years! 

I do urge you to go along to see Apples In Winter at Venue 29, Paradise In The Vault.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Edinburgh Guide

Edie Campbell (Miriam) gives a gut-wrenching, heart tugging performance in this portrayal of a mother losing her son in the worst way imaginable. Miriam's son Robert is facing death row after 22 years in prison, and has requested his mothers apple pie for his last meal. Miriam has until midnight before he is killed, and in an hour takes us through the process of making her signature dish for her beloved son. 

A kitchen counter with baking ingredients, and a clock in the corner. Miriam enters and begins the process of making the pie. She is a warm, Southern lady who wears an apron and you are given the illusion that it is set in the kitchen of their home. It is a prison kitchen. Throughout this process, she weaves in anecdotes and childhood stories of her son, as well as a gradual explanation and clues about where she is and what she is doing there - all leading up to a devastating climax. 

She flicks between a chirpy, and sentimental attitude and a more sinister and devastated one. Campbell’s portrayal of a mother who is in shock over her son's imminent death is convincingly heartbreaking, as is Jennifer Faucett’s writing. She displays anger at what her son did, but declares that she would love him no matter what he did, because she is ‘his mother’ and that’s what mothers do. At one point she loses control of her emotions in a particularly poignant scene where she falls to the floor in grief and heartbreak. 

You never see Robert as the performance is a one-woman show, and it would have been appreciated to have a deeper description of him as a person, and what led him to his life of addiction and crime. Nevertheless, the performance makes total sense as a one-woman show, instead giving insight into exactly how it has impacted his mother as a second-hand victim of crime. Campbell delivers and brings the story to life. 

As she tries to hold herself together and put on a smile, Miriam shows us and explains each stage of baking the pie. She shares more about Robert's life, his relationship with his father, his childhood, and the memories she has surrounding the famous apple pie and homegrown apples: ‘It's not the right time of the year, but Robert will understand’. Each stage represents a different memory, adding sentiment to the process and allowing us to feel her pain as a mother.

The journey shows Miriam through a journey of impending loss, grief and guilt. She asks the question all parents ask when their children go down the wrong path: ‘What did I do wrong?’ It's a powerful, heart-rending and hauntingportrayal of a mothers unconditional love and the cost of violent crime on family members - played masterfully and convincingly. 

International Times | Kathryn S. Kraus

Mirium stands alone in front of a kitchen workstation, flanked by mixing bowls, and ingredients needed to make her “famous” apple pie for her only son, Robert. Speaking with an American southern drawl, she begins kneading her dough whilst molding her tale for the audience. Hers is a tale of motherhood, grief, love, guilt, stigma, and forgiveness. We learn that Mirium is not in her home kitchen, and she is not simply baking a dessert treat for her son. She is in a prison kitchen, Robert is on death row, and the pie is his final meal request before his execution.

Written by Jennifer Fawcett, brilliantly presented by Surrey-based LynchPin Theatre Company, and performed by their co-founder Edie Campbell, Apples in Winter is a powerful and heartbreaking portrayal of a mother coming to terms with how the child she raised ended up in prison, together with the fact that she is baking the last piece of food he will ever taste on this Earth. As different ingredients for the pie get mixed into the bowl, so too do the details of Mirium’s relationship with her son, her relationship with extended family after his incarceration, and ultimately the details of his crime.

Credit must go to all involved, the emotionally charged script by Jennifer Fawcett, the staunch direction of Claire Parker, and the powerhouse performance from Edie Campbell. Applause too for the unseen technical and music contributors, the haunting prison sounds and the Ry Cooder-esque music by Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage. Silence also plays a huge part, not easy to achieve when it’s a full house, as it was, but a pin drop might have been heard during the intense moments of quiet. Congratulations to the LynchPin ensemble, and to the Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery for hosting the production.

This thought-provoking show will leave many viewers emotionally shaken and may lead to more open conversations about justice and forgiveness. Apples in Winter is a must-see for the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe.

The Family Stage

Jennifer Fawcett’s award-winning play, Apples in Winter, has its European premiere at the Playground Theatre, London this month. Produced by LynchPin Productions, the play provides a rare glimpse into the invisible impact of violent crime, from the perspective of those whose suffering is rarely considered. In the aftermath of a murder, the grief of the victims’ families is often played out very publicly. We share their fear and hope as they face the cameras at news conferences, desperate for information. We experience their agony as they attend candlelit vigils and their anger as they sit in a courtroom, staring powerless at the person who took their loved one away. We feel their pain, we admire their equanimity and we hope beyond hope that we never have to go through the life-shattering experience that they have endured. But we rarely spare a thought for the other families who are destined to serve their own life sentence. Separated from their loved ones and isolated from society by the shame of a crime that they didn’t commit are the families of the perpetrator. Apples in Winter tells their story.

Miriam’s son, Robert has been on death row for 22 years. And although they have been physically separated for all that time, she has lived every moment with him. Time has lost all meaning and yet all they have is time. But that time is coming to an end and now all Miriam (Edie Campbell) can do for Robert is something that she has been unable to do for 22 years. Robert is entitled to the ritual of one last meal and he has requested his mother’s apple pie. Over the course of 75 minutes, we watch Miriam go through her own familiar ritual, demonstrating how to bake the perfect pie as she grapples with the anticipatory grief of losing her son.

It’s a beautifully written single-hander and Campbell gives an astonishing performance. Alone on stage for the full 75 minutes, not only does she deliver a lengthy and emotional monologue but she goes through the full process of baking the apple pie in front of the audience. The juxtaposition of the ordinary, wholesome ritual of baking with the harsh reality of Miram’s situation is extremely effective. At first, the pie is the real focus, with Miriam giving glimpses into her time as a young mother, life measured happily by the different fruits offered by the changing seasons. But small things snap us back to the horror of what is about to unfold. Miriam talks fondly of her home kitchen and an apple tree she tended lovingly for years, picking the perfect apples to bake the perfect pies every September. But the imperfect apples she peels with a knife chained to the countertop remind us that she’s not in her own kitchen and it’s not apple pie season. And regular glances at the imposing electronic clock on the wall behind her take on a far greater significance than simply checking when to take the pie out of the oven.

As time ticks on, and the room starts to fill with the sweet scents of cinnamon and nutmeg, we learn more about the rituals that have defined Miriam’s life over the last 22 years. She tells of weekly visits to prison, every Sunday like the one before, the same breakfast and a stop en route to smoke a cigarette to try and make things feel normal for Robert, even though she gave up smoking years ago. And every other day she follows the daily routine of prison life, waking, eating and going to bed at the same time as the inmates in an attempt to feel close to Robert. But 22 years of comforting routine are about to come to an end and Miriam must grapple with with the enormity of what her son has done. Slowly, she starts to open up, sharing the reactions first of her own family and then of the victim’s families, getting closer to acknowledging what happened on the fateful night when her life changed forever. Finally the pie is ready and Miriam is too.

Directed brilliantly by Claire Parker, the production makes powerful use of silence, with Elizabeth Tooms’ lighting and Andrew Hodson’s bleak set design really enhancing the emotional impact. Each evening also ends with an after-show discussion featuring guests including criminal justice practitioners, those involved in human rights and restorative justice, and individuals with lived experience of the criminal justice system. At the performance we attended, the guests were Sandra Barefoot of The Forgiveness Project and Dunia Shafik, a mother whose son is currently serving a life sentence for murder. This really hammered home the themes of the play, as Dunia shared her story and explored how Miriam’s experience echoed her own.

Apples in Winter is an enthralling, emotional and impactful play which will no doubt appeal to anyone with an interest in the criminal justice system but will resonate for so many more. A remarkable piece of theatre which offers a voice to an often-ostracised group of peopleand will hopefully open up important conversations about justice and forgiveness.

Theatre Things

Miriam’s making an apple pie for her son. She’s made it countless times before – when he was a child, a teenager and a man… but this time is different. This time she’s in a prison kitchen, preparing the pie that her son’s requested as a final meal before his execution. As a clock ruthlessly ticks down the minutes on the wall behind her, Miriam pours all her hurt and grief into the last thing she’ll ever do for the child she loved, lost and found again only when it was too late to save him.

The premise of Jennifer Fawcett’s play is hard-hitting enough, but in the right hands it becomes absolutely devastating– and it’s hard to imagine hands more right than those of actor Edie Campbell. What’s important about Miriam is that she’s a nice lady, one you’d never expect to find in these circumstances, and Campbell radiates warmth and kindness from the moment she appears on stage. We like her, and so when her mask slips and we glimpse the pain beneath the smile, we feel it too. And as her reflections build gradually to a crescendo of rage and despair – against the system, against her son, and most of all against herself – we feel every single moment of it with her. It’s upsetting for all sorts of reasons, but largely because Miriam could be anyone’s mother; if such a horrific thing can happen to her, why not to any of us?

Whatever your views about the death penalty going in, it’s hard to watch Apples in Winter and not come away from it feeling sickened by a system that claims to offer justice but in fact does the exact opposite. 22 years after his crime, it’s difficult to think what Robert’s death can possibly achieve besides causing more suffering to more people, perpetuating a cycle of violence and revenge that should have ended long ago. And it’s hard to imagine what kind of life his mother will be going back to after today, knowing everything that she’s lost, and is about to lose, as a result of her son’s crime and punishment. The pie – prepared and baked on stage during the performance – might be perfect but everything else is shattered beyond repair, and the play’s last line, spoken with a heartbreaking finality, leaves the audience sitting in stunned silence for several moments after the lights go down.

I could probably write an essay on the quality of Fawcett’s writing, which is both sensitive and brutal in its exploration of a difficult topic. It raises so many points about not only the death penalty, but about family, and loss, and the failings of a society that drives people to crime and then denies them any opportunity for redemption. Director Claire Parker lets these words breathe, punctuating the production with moments of silence that give Miriam time alone with her thoughts, and the audience a chance to digest and process what we’ve heard. The play is also followed every evening by a post-show discussion, which provides further opportunity to explore the themes and impact of the play.

All I can really say about Apples in Winter is that it’s really, really good, with an immensely powerful one-woman performance from Edie Campbell that will leave you feeling shaken and devastated and furious. An absolute must-see.‍ ‍

2nd from bottom| John Chapman

Before the development of modern food storage methods fresh produce had its own season for harvesting and eating; apples, for instance, were primarily an autumn crop. Miriam makes this point as she sets about creating a pie for her son Robert to enjoy. The sweet treat is tinged with bitterness and regret though for the latter is on death row and it is to be part of his final meal before the state ritual of execution is carried out. This is the scenario in Jennifer Fawcett’s Apples In Winter currently on stage at The Playground Theatre in West London.

An award winning play from the US, this production is its European premiere and features a beautifully nuanced performance from Edie Campbell as the one and only character who gives agency to a generally neglected set of voices – the mothers of the criminally convicted. Criminality can, of course, often spring from neglect but there is no suggestion of that here. In fact, Miriam and Robert seem to have had a perfectly fine relationship until the point where the latter becomes an addict whereupon everything goes pear shaped (should, of course, be apple shaped but that doesn’t work). Robert commits a senseless act of violence resulting in death and is sentenced to pay the full penalty.

All of this is gradually revealed as we see Miriam making a pie she has made her son countless times before – often as the centrepiece of a celebratory occasion. And it is only gradually that we realise that the setting is the prison kitchen. She is not allowed to bake at home and bring the dessert in, just in case she “puts something in it” and cheats the justice system of her son’s ritualised demise. The production drops some clever hints. The set looks far grubbier than would be suggested by a home environment and at first Miriam is using a plastic knife to cut up the butter – my instant mental condemnation of the stage manager turned to approbation once I realised. There is a proper knife too but that is chained to the countertop; at this point the proverbial penny dropped. Pastry is made and fashioned into a pie crust, apples are sliced, spices are added. The result, constructed before our eyes, looks good enough to eat though Miriam has warned that many people in Robert’s position decline to do so.

I’m sorry if I’m making the play sound like a tame episode of The Great British Bake Off because it is far more than that. It’s an indictment of a system which insists on revenge but does little to solve the problems before they arise. It also asks the big question about what happens to the families who are left behind. Miriam in no way condones what her son has perpetrated but wonders what more could have been done to keep him from reaching the point where “an eye for an eye” is touted as the only solution. And over twenty years has passed since sentencing took place – the ongoing mental torture for all concerned must be horrendous.

Edie Campbell shows us a woman in torment but trying desperately to harness her emotions. At first she comes across as the all-American mom, baking that most traditional of US dishes, talking quietly and smiling wryly as she reminisces. But gradually the cracks begin to show; Campbell becomes increasingly agitated and even faints at the emotional intenseness of it all. Finally, she cracks and the last third of the play is a moving and delicately crafted piece on the part of the actor, the writer and director Claire Parker who sets the whole thing against a stark digital timer which counts down the minutes. Bake Off may sometimes be tense – but it is never as tense as this. Recommended.
2nd from bottom

The Surrey Advertiser | Jeff Thomson

Following a successful run as part of London’s thriving Fringe scene a relatively new play, Apples in Winter, arrived last week at The Mill Studio.

It was a compelling experience but not unsurprising because en route to Guildford both author and actor had achieved awards and recognition: the playwright Jennifer Fawcett won the Smith Prize for Political Theatre and actor Edie Campbell, following her London Run was nominated for an 2023 Offie (productions presented Off the West End) losing out to Dame Maureen Lipman whose appearance at the Park Theatre in Rose won the award.

Set in America Apples in Winter, advertised as ‘one woman’s love; one last request; one apple pie’ is a monologue in which we learn 22 years earlier Miriam’s son Robert had murdered a young couple and is on Death Row.

We also slowly conclude that Robert is not the only one ‘serving the sentence’. His mother too has had to cope with hostility and shame. Robert’s appeals against the death penalty have failed but he is permitted a last request; he has asked for a slice of his Mother’s apple pie. Miriam sets about the task of making it - peeling the apples, preparing the pastry and measuring the spices.

It is a gentle domestic scene agonizingly held-fast against a backdrop of violence - a kitchen seemingly calm but deeply shadowed by the brutality of impending retribution.

There is little outward drama but the tense silence in the Mill auditorium as we watched the clock tick down to the smell of a baking apple pie was astonishing. The production revisits the Mill Studio in February.

Yorkshire Bylines | Jonathan Stirling

Greenbelt 2024: Lynchpin Theatre’s production of Jennifer Fawcett’s Apples in Wintergripped audiences with the trauma of capital punishment at this year's Greenbelt Festival. I spoke with Edie Campbell, a performer and Claire Parker, the theatre director, about the critically-acclaimed play Apples in Winter.

I asked them how Apples in Winter made its way to Greenbelt. Campbell replied: “I was in Iowa and I met an old friend who said she had just seen this play Apples in Winter. She said, Lynchpin has to do it and you have to play Miriam. She put me in touch with Jennifer Fawcett, the author, and we started by doing a couple of public readings. I read the script and I thought, I can’t play this woman, I don’t know how to connect with her. And then before we had our first rehearsal, I thought I’d better read it aloud to myself, and I couldn’t get through it for weeping. And I thought, this is actually really powerful. After we’d done the readings, which got such fantastic responses, we asked Jennifer if we might be allowed to have the rights to do a production.”

Parker then elaborated on this. Apparently, they had applied for funding to do it, but didn’t get it. So they did a Crowdfunder, raised the money and went to the Playground Theatre in London for 10 performances. Parker went on: “We had great reviews and Edie was nominated as a finalist in the Offie nominations for best solo performance. It’s just one of those plays that hits a spot. It’s very impactful and I think it’s actually got something really important to say, and I think people recognise that”.

Apples in Winter tells the story of Miriam, whose son Robert has been on death row for 22 years, as she prepares his final meal, an apple pie. The narrative delves deep into Miriam’s experience as she wades through heartbreak, loss, denial, anger and fear. It also raises really interesting ideas around the ostracisation of individuals. Parker told me about the injustice of being tarred with a certain brush just by proximity. Particularly the line in the play, “I’ve lived this prison sentence with him.” She told me how we often hear about the victims’ families but we don’t often hear the story of Miriam, and that’s why they were so drawn to it. Parker continued: “A mother came to speak with lived experience, because her son was inside, and she really related to Miriam, and bravely spoke afterwards and said it was so accurate. Just that story of him was powerful, but then her experience of being ostracised and nobody wanting to talk to her.”

The play is hugely powerful in its ability to reach out beyond the stage and touch those in the audience with lived experience of the criminal justice system. I wanted to know whether forgiveness was possible. Parker shared that they work a little bit with the Forgiveness Project and hear stories of people that have been through hell and who you can forgive. Though she is acutely aware, forgiving is one thing, forgetting is another. Campbell explained: “The Forgiveness Project has some very powerful stories of mothers who have befriended the perpetrator and they now work together, speaking, working with young people, trying to stop people getting into the justice system.”

Robert is on death row because he murdered two teenagers late at night in a car park. We come to understand that he struggled with addiction and had a difficult relationship with his father, neither of which could be overcome by Miriam’s love and compassion. Campbell tells me about two different responses Miriam gets from the parents of the deceased teenagers. One of the parents places absolute blame on Miriam: “your son’s an addict because you don’t care enough exactly, your home is weak and uncaring.” In stark contrast however, the other parent tries to reconcile through her faith, forgiving Miriam and trying to forgive Robert for what he did. These interactions between the victims parents and Miriam highlighted the broad effect of a person’s actions on their family, with one young person at risk who saw the show sharing that he’d never thought about the effect of his actions on his mum. Campbell felt this was a big penny drop moment for him.

Apples in Winter is really astonishing to watch, with a transfixing solo performance from Campbell and crystal clear direction from Parker which exudes humanity in every moment and builds beautifully to a heartbreaking climax. I ask them about the benefits and challenges of the work. Campbell immediately praises the writing, describing it as astonishing and the role of a lifetime. She raises the challenges that it’s a hugely emotional piece and has a very profound effect on people because of the power and pain in the story. Parker told me it was a priority for her that Miriam was presented in a way that made it difficult for audiences to judge her, ensuring she didn’t become a basket case, and instead she wanted audiences to think: that could be me.

As well as performing 75 minutes on an emotional rollercoaster, Campbell also had to make an apple pie from scratch. She told me of the challenges at the beginning, missing ingredients and losing her place, but the final performance was slick. Jennifer Fawcett, the writer, had done a lot of research, apparently working with a baker so that the instructions were clear and that timings were perfectly linked between the text, the performance and the baking. Apparently the pair started rehearsals with just the words, which proved difficult when trying to link the different sections of the piece together. However, these were soon overcome once the actions of preparing the pie were added into the mix, allowing them to feed off one another and give each section a slightly different flavour.

With the assistance of a small oven and a small fridge, Miriam does indeed end up with a cooked pie at the end of the show. Though it all nearly falls apart as Miriam’s emotions start to overcome her and she spirals out of control. In a fit of rage she pulls the pie from the oven, holding it aloft above her head threatening to destroy what we have watched her so lovingly craft. But she cannot do it and the pie returns to the oven. Thankfully I learned that with the help of some theatre trickery, Campbell isn’t actually holding a hot pie above her head and that it’s actually a safe cold one. But if a real apple pie is baked this begs the question, what happens to the cooked pie? Sometimes they give it to the crew, but Parker tells me with a cheeky grin: “Edie doesn’t eat sugar, so her husband and I have eaten a lot of pies!”

★ ★ ★ ★Theatre and Tonic | Sam

Apples in Winter is a production about a mother’s suffering for the last 22 years following the harrowing crime her son committed when he was a teenager. Written by award-winning playwright Jennifer Fawcett and performed by Edie Campbell, who played Miriam, this is a 70-minute show by Lynchpin Productions Theatre Company that will keep you engaged throughout.

Miriam’s son has been on death row for 22 years and today, the state will execute him for murdering two teenagers. As is the tradition when on death row, he is granted one last meal and asks for his mother’s delicious apple pie which is made up of cinnamon, nutmeg and spice. In this compelling play, Miriam talks us through how to make the perfect apple pie, whilst inside the prison kitchen as she tells the tale of what happened 22 years ago.

This was the first time I’ve ever seen a solo performance and it worked well. Campbellfilled the studio despite the set being simplistic, she made use of the space and projected her voice well. It was her kitchen, and it felt like we were also living her nightmares.

Miriam is a gentle character, riddled with guilt. When Campbellwas in character, I felt like I was listening to Miriam’s audiobook or reading her diary aloud. As she became more and more frustrated, haunted by guilt, I wanted to leave my seat to give her a hug to say it wasn’t her fault. I have a family member who lives with guilt everyday due to her son passing and she didn’t call to check in, he was found deceased days later. 

I think it’s imperative to try and learn from plays wherever possible. And here, I think we can take something away from this show and that is that you’re not responsible for other people’s actions or things that are out of your control. It’s hard to accept this, but in order to continue living your life, you have to let go which is what we see Miriam do towards the end.

Campbellis an extremely talented actress, and I think she made the play more emotive than I thought it would be. I felt her pain. There were moments where it almost felt surreal - it didn’t feel like a rehearsed production, it was so realistic. Miriam’s pain was shown through her body language, her tone of voice as she was often distressed and through baking her son’s final apple pie. It was slick and I don’t know how Campbell was able to make a pie without referring to a recipe somewhere, remembering all her lines and the order of the ingredients as well as portraying emotion. It was spectacular to watch someone execute all of this in a solo play because we’re so used to seeing others on stage to help bring the very best out in other performers.

In my opinion, if the person playing Miriam didn’t give it their all, I feel the play could fall a little flat and may not keep the audience engaged as it’s more about listening to the mother’s story more so than movement / action. There were times where I was expecting something more, maybe flashbacks of the crime (with others involved) or a picture of her son somewhere for reference but as the play nears the end, I gained a better understanding of the backstory.

This theatre company is performing at different venues around the country, with the next being in Corby. If you would like to see this thought-provoking one-person show, please visit their website.