Tickets for one-woman play 'The Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton' at Durham Cathedral on October 19 and 20th 2023, 7.30pm are now on sale. Written and performed by Debbie Cannon (Green Knight, winner of the Female Actor Award at Buxton Fringe 2018), directed by Flavia D'Avila of Fronteiras Theatre Lab, and developed as part of the Alice Thornton's Books Project. Both performances will be followed by a Q&A session. A synopsis is below. If you're close to Durham, don't miss this!
Yorkshire, 1668. Mrs Alice Thornton - widow, mother, and daughter of the late Lord Deputy of Ireland - finds herself the subject of a most dreadful scandal. Tonight, she begs your presence at a defence of her life, including twenty miraculous deliverances from death.
Based on the handwritten notebooks of Alice Thornton (1626-1707) - including two recently rediscovered manuscripts - this one-woman theatre/storytelling performance reflects on one woman's life and experiences across the span of the seventeenth century, against the turbulent backdrop of civil war, plague, the Great Fire of London...and the treacherous world of North Yorkshire society.
Contains themes of bereavement and infant loss.
A review of an earlier version from The Scotsman:
human and very funny ... thoroughly enjoyable ... Cannon’s performance is vivid and engaging.