Alys, Always: A superbly disquieting psychological thriller

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Theatre includes, at The Bridge, A Christmas Carol, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Two Ladies, Alys, Always and Young Marx. At the start of this story, protagonist Frances comes upon a car turned on its side with the injured driver, a woman, trapped within. When the dead woman's family is interested in meeting Frances, she uses this "in" as her chance to appear connected in the literary world. Frances is a fascinating creation: determined, deceitful, intriguingly complex and believably drawn. But from its tedious archetypes to its tired satire, Alys, Always makes for wasted opportunities across multiple fronts.

Theatre includes Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre; The Winter’s Tale at BAM, the Barbican and on tour; Albee Vector The Sound Collector at the Arcola and Vault Festival; and King Lear at the Rose Rose Bankside. As well as this mildly perverse take on personal identity, which remains regrettably undeveloped, the play — whose story Frances narrates straight to the audience throughout — is a superficial study of truth and lies. As Frances becomes more involved with Polly, her boss at the `Questioner', impressed by Frances's friendship with the Kytes, puts some of the more prestigious assignments her way. With shades of Hitchcock, The Talented Mr Ripley and Dear Evan Hansen, it was first staged at the Bridge Theatre in London in 2019 starring Joanne Froggatt and Robert Glenister. Some of the interpretations of the narrator felt different to my own, an inevitable consequence of audio books over reading from print.And her patience pays off one night when an accident gives her the opportunity to change her life and become one of life's elite. The relationships she builds with the Kytes will have an impact on her own life, both professionally and personally, as Frances dares to wonder whether she might now become a player in her own right.

She ends up being with the driver, Alys, when she dies, and a few weeks later the family ask to meet Frances so she can tell them about her last moments in person. One bitterly cold winter's evening driving back to London from her parents' home, she encounters a car that has skidded from the road and is witness to the last few minutes of the driver's life. Nicholas Hytner’s sleekly efficient production glides over a bare stage dominated by a large cuboid structure and some video projections of rather doubtful quality. This stage version of Alys, Always was premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London, in February 2019, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Joanne Froggatt and Robert Glenister. 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.There was one unmissable show - Laura Linney in My Name is Lucy Barton - and a good promenade Shakespeare in Julius Caesar).

One evening, driving back to London after visiting her infuriating parents, she comes across an upturned car crumpled on the side of the road. In fact lots of books get name-checked as Frances (Joanne Froggatt) works at a Sunday broadsheet with a dwindling readership, a sub-editor on the book reviews section but, if she’s noticed at all, treated as a glorified gopher by the more dominant personalities on her team. Whether that's putting new work on stages across the world or supporting our outreach and learning programmes, every purchase you make really does make a difference. Mum said she couldn’t understand herself in a place that doesn’t have any seasons,” says Polly at one point. Television includes War and Peace, Sense and Sensibility, Fame is the Spur, Rumpole of the Bailey, Rebecca, Inspector Morse, Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, The Forsyte Saga, Monarch of the Glen, He Knew He Was Right, Bleak House, A Touch of Frost, Miss Marple, Casualty, and most recently Death in Paradise, Downton Abbey, Man in an Orange Shirt, Agatha Raisin, Thanks for the Memories, The Boy with the Topknot and Delicious.There she meets: Laurence Kyte, still handsome in his fifties, Laurence's son, Teddy, who is in his twenties, and nineteen-year-old Polly, a rather needy drama student.