Born 1969, Penny Layden is a British actress and narrator. She has performed at the National Theatre, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic Theatre, with Shared Experience and the Royal Exchange Theatre.
Three suburban English families' lives intertwine with tragic consequences.
The story of Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, a poisoner whose methods leave no visible scars, allowing her tally of victims to mount, unsuspected by a Victorian society unable to conceive of a woman capable of such terrible crimes. Traveling around the North East, she insinuates herself into unsuspecting families, marrying and creating new families of her own - before killing them, taking their money and moving on.
N has been a day patient at north London's Dorothy Fish day hospital for 13 years - her ambition is never to leave. Then she meets glamourous new patient Poppy Shakespeare, an ad agency receptionist convinced she's not mad.