Frome Drama Club’s spring production at the Merlin Theatre is Alan Bennett’s ‘The Lady in the Van’, directed by Philip de Glanville.
Frome Drama Club say, “Essentially the play is about how one day in 1974 a rather smelly reclusive lady, calling herself Mary Shepherd, drove her van into Alan Bennett’s garden in Camden and stayed there, in his driveway, until her death in 1989. There were hints that she might once have been a child prodigy at the piano, that she had studied in France, and that she had failed eventually in her bid to become a nun. Moreover, she harboured a guilty secret.
“And Alan Bennett fell hopeless under the sway of this cockeyed character, subsequently writing this heart-warming, and award-winning, play about their 15-year relationship. As he says in the foreword, “It is mainly true,”
The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett is at The Merlin Theatre from this Thursday, 26th April, until Saturday 28th April. Tickets are £10 (concessions £8) from the box office on 01373 465949 or on line at www.merlintheatre .co.uk
