Both clever satire on the (north) London literary scene and compelling thriller worthy of Patricia Highsmith, [ Alys, Always ] is unshowy and modest. Nicholas Hytner’s Bridge Theatre sometimes feels overwhelmed by a sense of unrealised potential: it can command the best playwrights, actors and directors in the world, but has yet to really knock it out of the park with a piece of new writing. 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. Froggatt plays her as an everywoman increasingly chased by flashes of exasperation, anger and froideur as she pushes further on into this privileged world and fails to find very much to satisfy her.

Alys, Always is one of those books that the less you know about the plot coming into it, the better your reading experience of it will be. She's efficient and good at her job but is irritated by those in higher positions who seem to have gained their positions on the back of who they know rather than their abilities or hard work. And suddenly, just weeks after the West End stage version of All About Eveopened, we're in Eve Harrington territory, as she inveigles herself, unwittingly at first, into Laurence's family, striking up a friendship with his daughter Polly, then a furtive sexual relationship with Laurence himself. Her opportunism works wonders: at the office she is promoted; she gets to have lunch with the rich and privileged. Her routine, colourless existence is disrupted one winter evening when she happens upon the aftermath of a car crash and hears the last words of the driver, Alys Kyte.Sitting with the family over a glass of wine, Frances sees that Polly's neediness might just be her route into the Kyte family and, through Polly, Frances might just find her way into Laurence's life - which, of course, is her main aim.

It’s never particularly obvious what she actually wants; but probably she doesn’t know herself, her entire journey a sort of listless poking at her own spiritual void. 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. Great things were expected for this theatre, founded by Nick Hytner and Nick Starr after they departed from the National Theatre, which they had turned into the single most exciting theatrical address in London.Please note that this performance includes the use of haze, herbal cigarettes, vaping devices and contains strong language. It’s only circumstance that’s made the Kytes the haves and Frances one of the have-nots, so the family aren’t exactly there for us to sympathise with as she takes advantage of them; but neither are they quite obnoxious enough for the play to really work as a satire of the undeserving rich. Theatre includes The Tempest, Cymbeline and The White Devil at Shakespeare’s Globe; and Queen Anne for the RSC in the West End. See our Remarkables Archive for some that are no longer in print, but which we are happy to try to track down.

To make this metamorphosis she manipulates her way into the Kyte family, using the young daughter Polly as her key, and very soon this pays off. However, this isn't just humour for the sake of it, it is fundamental to Frances's ambition to escape the middle of the road existence and the run of the mill life of her elder sister.Le Touzel injects some vulnerability into her boss-bitch character, Jeff Rawle’s newspaper editor wants to project a human side, Danny Ashok is lovable as he tries to flirt with an oblivious Frances, and Sam Woolf wears shorts in one scene, so that’s nice. Frances is a fascinating creation: determined, deceitful, intriguingly complex and believably drawn . Frances is a thirty-something sub-editor, an invisible production drone, on the books pages of the Questioner . She is a permanent member of the band for Anna Meredith and toured extensively in 2016, 2017 and 2018 across Europe and the US to promote the album Varmints (Scottish Album of the Year). 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.