Plot

"Friends and Crocodiles" traces the changing relationship of maverick entrepreneur Paul Reynolds and his assistant Lizzie Thomas over a period of 20 years from the beginnings of the Thatcher era to the bursting of the dot.com bubble.

"Friends and Crocodiles" traces the relationship of maverick entrepreneur Paul Reynolds and his colleague Lizzie Thomas over a period of 20 years from the beginning of the Thatcher years to the rise of the electronic age and the dot-com bubble. Paul persuades Lizzie to work for him as his personal assistant, and becomes her mentor. She is inspired by his drive and creativity, but appalled by his lack of organisation and occasionally destructive anarchic lifestyle. After she calls the police to terminate an extravagant party which has got out of hand, they part, vowing never to meet again, but, over the years, their paths continually cross, as Lizzie rises through the corporate world and Paul's fortunes rise and fall. The play is an examination of the nature of personal relationships where work and ideas are more powerful drivers than sexual emotions, and also a panoramic view of the rapid changes in British society in the '80's and '90's.—David Forster

It is the early 1980s. Paul Reynolds is the young, wealthy owner of a magnificent house, a host of great parties, and a patron of eccentrics - academics, poets, artists, revolutionaries and libertarians. Lizzie, persuaded to become his secretary, manages to bring some structure to this chaotic, visionary, and hedonistic existence, but Paul's eden seems destined to self-destruct. Lizzie and Paul fall out, but somehow inevitably their paths are set to cross again and again ...—Anonymous

It is the beginning of the eighties, and young businesswoman Lizzie leaves her job to become the secretary to the wealthy and eccentric owner of a great country house. She struggles to adjust to his bohemian lifestyle and strange friends, but their lives nevertheless seem destined to intertwine as the years go past and society changes around them.—auryx