Marleen Vermeulen (1964-2022)

My friend Marleen Vermeulen died on 4 July 2022, six years after first being diagnosed with brain cancer. I last saw her a few weeks ago in our local hospice, where she was still smiling from ear to ear when we talked about her family and her work.

Marleen was one of the pioneers of theatre for young audiences from the 1990s onwards, inspiring artists and venues to make and programme work for the very young, including babies. Work for this age group is now hugely popular, but was much less so when she started making this work. The sector owes her much.

I first met Marleen 30 years ago in autumn 1992, when I joined Pop-Up Theatre, a small-scale touring children’s theatre company which had just been given their first long-term Arts Council funding. Marleen performed in the first play I worked on, Inside Out. She had such lovely energy and charisma and was great fun to spend time with. She and her partner Thierry soon became very dear friends and over the years our professional lives have continued to overlap.

Soon after her time at Pop-Up, she formed her own company, Tam Tam Theatre, which specialised in shows for young children. When Half Moon Theatre opened as a public venue in the late 1990s she performed all of her shows here, including The Dream Tree, Magic Sandals and one of my favourites, Tiddalick. In 2012, Tam Tam Theatre joined our touring portfolio, Half Moon Presents, and we produced three of her shows on tour over the following seven years – Circles in the Sand, Curious and Leaf.  These shows did an incredible total of 497 performances across the UK and were extremely well received by audiences here and in the many other venues.

I think her love for life is captivated in this photo from Leaf and her skills as a performer are nicely summed up by an audience member who wrote in our comments book after seeing the show:

“Fantastic performance! We enjoyed every minute and the performance was beautiful. The actress has such a beautiful manner and expression. She is very lovely to watch.”

Marleen is survived by her devoted husband Thierry and their three beautiful children, Lilai, Indy and Lula.

Jackie Eley, Half Moon’s Administrative Director