Front Row

Jill Halfpenny stars in a new tv thriller The Drowning. Nine years ago, Jodie’s little boy disappeared on a picnic by the lake, presumed drowned, and she’s never been able to accept his loss. Now, out of the blue, she catches sight of a teenage boy and she’s sure that it’s her missing son. Jill talks to Samira about why she likes playing morally ambiguous characters, shares her own personal experience of loss and how grief is a monster you just can’t outrun.The British Library has just acquired the archive of the Theatre Royal, Stratford East and Helen Melody, Curator of Contemporary Literature and Creative Archives, tells Samira Ahmed about its treasures: scripts, performance recordings, letters, photographs, rehearsal notes, press cuttings and props. The archive also contains material from the tenures of later artistic directors, such Philip Hedley and Kerry Michael, who notably encouraged diversity and inclusion, Black and Asian theatre, and work made by people with disabilities. We mark the publication