‘A garden without a traditional English rose is a cardinal sin – and I committed eight of those before my Ready Brek’
Nineteen-year-old Pip is trying to find themselves through gardening. But with a dad more interested in plants than people and a mum stuck in the past, they’re left to ponder life’s questions alone.
Then one day, they uncover a jacket in the attic that’s been gathering dust. Bold, vibrant and very ’80s, in its pocket lies a diary belonging to someone long gone. Swept up in the mystery, Pip digs into the past, unearthing secrets about an old friend their parents don’t want to discuss…
Funny, affecting and beautifully queer, Coral Wylie’s play Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew tracks one family’s efforts to assuage the past and plant the seeds of a better future. It was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award in 2023 and premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2025, directed by Debbie Hannan and starring Omari Douglas, Pooky Quesnel and Wil Johnson alongside the playwright.
‘Powerful… incredibly beautiful… a debut that leaves a lasting impression… Nothing short of brilliant, the play holds a torch over family relationships, understanding queer identities, confronting gender binaries, Black masculinity, and femininity whilst bursting with humour and sentiment… Wylie is masterful and poetic, sensitive and commanding. The talent is overwhelming’
— WhatsOnStage
‘Affecting and genuinely moving… Wylie’s writing is astute, with witty everyday observations that ring true and some devastating lines on loss’
— Telegraph
‘Eloquent… profoundly personal… simultaneously ancient and blazingly modern… There’s an unaffected poetry to the dialogue… a vibrant alternative perspective to today’s concerns about digitally fixated teens… a passion for life at its most full-blooded’
— The Times
‘Brilliant… pulses with humour and fire… beautiful and touching… a play that shows the wonder of friendship wholeheartedly and my eyes are filled with tears by its close. Wylie is clearly a talent’
— Time Out
‘Beautiful and deeply moving: a testament to the indomitable flowering of queer identity and found family through grief and the cracks of time… Wylie shades in the characters with funny and at times heartbreaking empathy’
— The Stage
‘Coral Wylie has crafted four believable and relatable characters… so heartfelt, so genuine… moments of such joy, and of such immediate sorrow, that it’s difficult to not be entirely won over by this play, and by the complicated family at its heart’
— All That Dazzles
‘A warm and gentle play, with weight behind its poetry, and thorns behind its petals… a tightly bundled bouquet of a play – crafted, considered and full of love’
— West End Best Friend
