A painfully funny play about motherhood (and fatherhood), about keeping control, and about letting go. Good friends should be there for one another – no matter what. But when Bea returns home after five years abroad, having made a bold choice about her life, old friends struggle to support her, or even to understand. One night in Brighton, things threaten to slide into chaos... Deborah Bruce's play The Distance was premiered at the Orange Tree Theatre, London, in October 2014. It was a finalist for the 2012-13 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.