Publicity photograph by Paul McGuigan
Upcoming Performances –
We’re delighted that The Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton will be part of the wonderful Helmsley Literary Festival at Helmsley Arts Centre on 13 September 2025! You can buy tickets now from here.
‘human and very funny’, ‘thoroughly enjoyable’, ‘Cannon’s performance is vivid and engaging’ (The Scotsman, reviewing the 2019 run)
‘Incredible performance‘; ‘Excellent performance and script. Very powerful presentation of Alice’s writing – brings her to life.’ (Audience feedback, 2023 run)
1668. Mrs Alice Thornton – widow, mother, and daughter of the late Lord Deputy of Ireland – begs your presence at a defence of her life, including her many miraculous deliverances from death … and a dreadful scandal.
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. The play contains themes of bereavement and infant loss.
The Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton was written and is performed by Debbie Cannon, directed by Flavia D’Avila of Fronteiras Theatre Lab, with dramaturgy by Jen McGregor. It is based on research led by Professor Cordelia Beattie at the University of Edinburgh, the Alice Thornton’s Books Project (https://thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/), with whom the concept of the show was developed.
It was first performed at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on 14 and 16 November 2019 as part of the Being Human Festival. The performance on 14 November was live-streamed by Channel 7a.
A re-written version of the play was performed at Durham Cathedral in 2023, and in 2024 at the North Yorkshire County Record Office, at Buxton Fringe, at Biggar little Festival, and at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh.
You can read more about Dr Beattie’s ongoing research on Alice Thornton here and the development of the play for the Being Human Festival here.
We were delighted that the play was reviewed by The Scotsman.
We had some wonderful audience feedback to our 2023 performances:
- Brilliant performance.
- I now want to find out much more about her.
- The play was excellent and engaging – Debbie was fantastic!
- Incredible performance.
- Excellent performance and script. Very powerful presentation of Alice’s writing – brings her to life.
- Really impressed that it was a one woman performance. I’d never heard of her before. It’s fascinating!
- Amazing performance really brought Alice to life.
- It brought the primary sources to life and made me think about women in the past in whole new ways. Brava!
We were lucky to have the production photographed by Jane Hobson.
Debbie Cannon 