‘Finding Alice’ Writer Teases a Tale of ‘Hope and Warmth’ Amid Loss

Who says death is no laughing matter? Hours after Alice (Keeley Hawes) moves into the tech-heavy “smart house” designed by her partner, Harry (Jason Merrells), he falls down the stairs to his death. And he never even told Alice how the toilet flushes!

In the six-episode series Finding Alice, the resilient Alice goes through a roller coaster of emotions as she deals with her overbearing family, secrets Harry kept from her and their daughter (Isabella Pappas), and the detectives who find the death suspicious.

(Credit: Acorn TV)

Cowriter and director Roger Goldby doesn’t see anything odd about injecting dark humor into a bereavement story. He created Finding Alice with Hawes and fellow writer Simon Nye, all of whom met while working on PBS’s The Durrells in Corfu, another series about a widowed mother moving on.

“We share a similar sensibility in terms of humor,” Goldby says. “None of us wanted to tell a miserable story. We wanted to tell a story that was truthful, but also that had a sense of hope and warmth.”

Finding Alice, Series Premiere, Monday, September 13, Acorn TV