The Passenger

Seventeen year old convent schoolgirl Mary Lloyd has burnt her bridges in England. Failing her final set of exams; helping herself to a priceless family heirloom; smashing her mother's lover's windscreen. Tiptoeing across the roofs in the middle of the night, Mary embarks on a journey, taking her from Cheltenham Spa halfway around the world. Back to her home in Ceylon, back to her childhood friend, Dani Fernando; back to her father again. We join Mary at Southampton docks, waiting in...
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Seventeen year old convent schoolgirl Mary Lloyd has burnt her bridges in England. Failing her final set of exams; helping herself to a priceless family heirloom; smashing her mother's lover's windscreen. Tiptoeing across the roofs in the middle of the night, Mary embarks on a journey, taking her from Cheltenham Spa halfway around the world. Back to her home in Ceylon, back to her childhood friend, Dani Fernando; back to her father again. We join Mary at Southampton docks, waiting in line to board The Orientana. Travelling under a "borrowed" passport and the assumed identity of Mavis Biggleswade, Mary finds life onboard a bit of an eye-opener. A sweet little old lady, with a penchant for booze and matchmaking; an exotic-looking Etonian, with the decidedly unexotic name of George Jones. He offers to take Mary to see the pyramids; introduces her expensive Champagne; seems to want to give her the world. But there must be strings attached, surely? Perhaps he has a few skeletons of his own. Set in the 1930s, The Passenger is a coming of age story. Mary finds herself forced to grow up PDQ. From infatuation to drunken embarrassment to the downright dangerous, this tragic comedy tells the tale of a young adult treading the tightrope from adolescence to womanhood; of identities lost, borrowed and found.