With those opening sentences, Adelaide writer Pip Williams enticed thousands of readers into The Dictionary of Lost Words and the world of Esme and her father’s “scrippy” where every word in the English language was written on a slip of paper to fill the Oxford English Dictionary.
Former Artistic Director Mitchell Butel saw the possibility of those words going from page to stage and commissioned Adelaide playwright Verity Laughton to adapt the acclaimed novel by Adelaide novelist Pip Williams, with the theatrical production exploring themes including friendship, love, heartbreak, grief, war, female empowerment, and the origins of a woman’s right to vote in both England and Australia.
“It turns out that one thing Esme, the protagonist, Pip Williams, the novelist, and I have in common is a complete obsession with words,” Verity said.
“Like we are talking serious obsession here – it’s semi-tragic. So I knew what Pip was writing about, and I knew what Esme needed so desperately because I needed it too. I was wary, too, however, because I also knew that the book had been a huge sleeper hit, eventually selling well over half a million copies worldwide so it was understood that any audience would be a highly invested one.
They would be seeking a version of the experience they remembered from reading the book and it would be my task to deliver that to them.
Verity largely followed the chronology of the book, saying, “I was very conscious that you needed the charm and gutsy humour of the original to hold the audience’s attention. As I see it the play is ‘about’ people pursuing personal goals amidst great moments of social change and history with the added frisson around the making of that world through the making of its language.
“At the centre of it all is Esme Nicoll, the motherless daughter of one of the lexicographers working with Sir James Murray on the ground-breaking first edition of what became the Oxford English Dictionary.
“The key word for book and play is that first ‘lost’ word – the reality kernel within the fiction of the story – namely ‘bondmaid’ – with all the associations that that word contained in Esme’s time and still contains today. It’s been a joy to bring it to stage life.”
After delighting audiences and critics alike in sold out seasons in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, State Theatre Company South Australia’s highest and fastest selling show in the history of the Dunstan Playhouse returns to Adelaide as part of a wider national tour throughout 2025.
With a brand-new cast starring Shannen Alyce Quan, Angela Nica Sullen, Jame Smith, Johnny Nasser, Ksenja Logos, Rachel Burke, Arkia Ashraf and Brian Meegan, The Dictionary of Lost Words is back for those who missed out, and for those who want relive the magic again.
In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. The Dictionary of Lost Words is the story of the girl who found it.
A multi-award winner, the book has been praised by critics as an “absorbing, quietly revolutionary novel” (The Age) and “a captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded” (The New York Times). Motherless and ever curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium – the “Scrippy”, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary.
She hides beneath the table and catches discarded words as they fall – words the men find irrelevant and unimportant… female words. Here begins Esme’s collection of her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words.
As the years pass and Esme’s world expands and her circle of friends grows – actresses, suffragettes, market traders, workers, she realises the power in gathering their voices and lending hers. And on the way, she comes to understand the many meanings of the word “love”.
Assistant Director Shannon Rush said if you loved the 2023 version, you’ll love this one too. And if you didn’t see it then, make sure you catch it in 2025!
“What a privilege to bring this much- loved, sold-out production back to the stage! Audiences absolutely loved it, and with many new faces in the cast and some script tweaks too, the show will have a fresh new energy.”
The 2023 production of The Dictionary of Lost Words won the prestigious arts industry Ruby Award ‘Outstanding Work or Event Outside a Festival’ in 2024.
Named after patron of the arts, the late Dame Ruby Litchfield, the Ruby Awards recognise excellence, creativity, and community involvement in South Australia’s arts and cultural sector.
The Dictionary of Lost Words is at Dunstan Playhouse from 3–17 April.
More information at statetheatrecompany.com.au
