Alys Always

ALYS ALWAYS by Lucina Coxan, directed by Paul Ackroyd

This is a new play first performed at the Bridge Theatre in March 2019.  We may be the first amateur group to perform it.  It is based upon Harriet Lane’s acclaimed novel of the same name.

Perhaps best described as a psychological thriller, it tells the story of Frances, a young woman who lives a mundane life in the publishing industry, who one day stops to help at a fatal roadside accident. When the victim’s family reach out to make contact, a door opens into a world previously out of reach, a world of privilege and possibility since the victim’s grieving husband is a luminary in the very world where Frances is trying to make her mark.  Are her actions motivated by ruthless ambition or is she just doing what anyone might do to help a grieving family? Are the distortions of the truth she recounts merely trying to help their feelings or an attempt at ingratiation and will she get found out?

“Everything about the play rings with a horrible truth, and the writing is consistently funny and flecked with pain” What’s onstage.

 “Wonderfully observed…, A gripping psychologically complex achievement whose greatest success is the lingering sense of unease” Sunday Telegraph.

CAST