Ancient Lights

by Shelagh Stephenson

D'you ever look in the mirror and you don't recognise the person looking back at you?



Tom Cavallero, Hollywood actor, and his girlfriend Iona are spending Christmas in England with his oldest friends, Bea and Kitty. Bea's new lover, Tad, would rather hole up quietly with his copy of Pathology For Beginners. Her daughter Joni would rather be in Shepherds Bush. Northumberland in a blizzard isn't quite what Tom was expecting. And how can anyone relax when Iona's filming their every move? She's making a documentary about 'the real Tom'. But who is that exactly? And what's out there in the garden that disturbs them all so much?Tom, Bea and Kitty go back a long way. They've known each other since they were young and unformed. But who have they become? And what price have they paid?
Ancient Lights premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in November, 2000.
"An acute and funny writer, Stephenson carves out a welcome territory that is distinctive, contemporary and theatrical." - Independent

Genres: Plays

Paperback

First published November 9, 2000

About the author

Shelagh Stephenson was born in Northumberland and read drama at Manchester University. She has written several original plays for BBC Radio. These include Darling Peidi, about the Thompson and Bywater murder case, which was broadcast in the Monday Play series in 1993; a Saturday Night Theatre, The Anatomical Venus, broadcast in the following year; and Five Kinds of Silence (1996), which won the Writer's Guild Award for Best Original Drama. Her first stage play, The Memory of Water, opened at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in July 1996, and her second, An Experiment With An Air Pump, joint winner of the 1997 Peggy Ramsay Award, opened at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in February 1998. Also Life is a Dream, and Through a Glass Darkly in 2004.

Reviews

[Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great piece dealing with deception in many forms.

[Nicolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting format, but a little too crude for my target audiences.