Capturing Mary - Plot

Plot

We first meet the character of Mary as an old woman (Dame Maggie Smith) in the present. The “old” Mary, a former journalist and socialite, arrives at the house of Elliot Graham’s late father. Joe, the caretaker of the house, takes pity on her and invites her in. She begins to recount to Joe the significance of the house to her.

Moving from room to room, she tells Joe of the 1950s high society soirees she was invited to in the house. She recalls how Mr Graham’s soirees were attended by the great and the good – the aristocracy, the nouveaux riche, industrialists, newspaper barons, editors, actors, directors, and so forth. She tells Joe that she has been haunted by the memory of a sinister man named Greville White whom she met one evening in the house. Greville White turns out to be a social climber whose influence reached into high society. Mary recalls that he was supremely charming, but utterly evil. We see Greville and the “young” Mary (Ruth Wilson) in Mr Graham’s cellar selecting fine wines for a salad that he has prepared. In the cellar, Greville tells Mary of dark secrets involving members of the British Establishment who are enjoying Mr Graham’s soiree in the rooms above them. The secrets involve child abuse, sexual perversion, anti-semitism, and racism amongst the great and the good.

He feigns friendship with Mary, but she rejects him because of his malevolent powers. The audience encounters “subsequent” meetings between the two in the 1950s and 1960s at Mr Graham’s soirees and other social events. We begin to see the sinister destruction of Mary’s life by Greville White and her slide into despair and alcoholism.

The end of the drama sees Greville White re-appear in Kensington Gardens in the present. Mary is now an old woman (Dame Maggie Smith) but the sinister Greville White has not aged since they first met in the 1950s.