Theatre review: Alys, Always

For Nicholas Hytner’s latest project at his own theatre he directs Alys, Always, Lucinda Coxon’s adaptation of Harriet Lane’s novel that plays out like a low-key (very low-key) Talented Mr Ripley - a book that’s name-checked in the play itself. 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. Driving home at night after Christmas at her parents’, she witnesses a car accident and sits with the injured driver waiting for the ambulance. 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. Frances doesn’t think it’s a good idea until she realises who the family are.

Alys’ widower is the Booker Prize-winning novelist Laurence Kyte (Robert Glenister ,) who’s become reclusive in his mourning. Frances turns up to give – and maybe pad out – her account of Alys’ last words, and finds a particularly eager listener in Laurence’s daughter.

Spoilt and needy Polly (Leah Gayer) treats Frances as a link to her dead mother and invites her to her memorial; there Frances makes sure she’s seen by her boss Mary (Sylvestra Le Touzel) as an intimate of Laurence and his family, and she suddenly starts being noticed and given more opportunities at work. With either her job or one other on the line, she starts to make sure it’s cocksure Oliver (an entertainingly oblivious Simon Manyonda,) coasting on his famous journalist father’s reputation rather than doing any work, who gets the chop. At the same time she tries to make her perceived intimacy with the family into the real thing, filling the gap left by Alys by finding out all she can about the dead woman and taking on the things they loved about her – her willingness to listen to their problems, her cooking, and her large jugs

of home-made elderflower cordial.

Alys, Always is entertaining and well-cast; Froggatt convinces as a couple of instances of being in the right place at the right time give her the idea to aggressively pursue her best interests. 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. With the Bridge in its thrust configuration Bob Crowley’s sleek set inventively slides locations across the stage and up through the lifts, with Luke Halls’ projections helping to set the scene and Christina Cunningham’s costume designs charting Frances’ course from invisible to power player.

But it’s toothless in many ways. 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. Nor does it ever really take off as a thriller: If there’s a chilling element here it’s that it stays this side of realism, Frances never descending into boggle-eyed insanity but insinuating herself into people’s lives and jobs in a way that makes you wonder who you should be looking over your shoulder for in real life. But Hytner’s pace is a bit too steady, and you feel like there should be a big twist coming; as I saw we were minutes away from the end it became clear it would never materialise. It fits into Frances’ progression, which isn’t so much planned as opportunist, but makes this an evening that’s diverting but unlikely to be memorable.

Alys, Always by Lucinda Coxon, based on the novel by Harriet Lane, is booking until the 30th of March at the Bridge Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Maybanks.