It’s all about second chances…
When Addie sets off from Bristol on an epic road trip to a wedding in Spain with her sister Deb, she’s barely out of the city when her knackered VW campervan is rear-ended by a speeding Porsche containing her ex, Dylan, and his obnoxious best friend Marcus. Addie and Dylan haven’t spoken since their messy breakup but – headed to the same wedding and with best man Dylan’s ride totalled – Addie agrees to put their differences aside and travel together.
A thousand miles is a long time to be stuck in a campervan with so much buried history though, especially when you’re on your way back to the exact place you first fell in love. The mystery of Addie and Dylan’s breakup looms large. What really did happen? Why have they had no contact? Who, if anyone, was to blame? It’s going to be a bumpy ride…
Addie, played by Emma Appleton, is single-minded and staunchly self-reliant, Addie’s got her walls up these days. But two years on from a devastating breakup with her boyfriend Dylan and still living in her sister’s boxroom, who can blame her? An excellent teacher, Addie has a rigid sense of right and wrong. The kids can’t help but respect her, like her even. But she’s also quick to cut people off and even quicker to run headlong from any serious relationship – a legacy of seeing herself as the ‘trial run’ daughter after her dad left and started a new family. Addie’s dry, quick wit and ‘can do’ attitude make her a pretty good road trip companion, even if she does insist on fixing every problem by herself.
Dylan, portrayed by Laurie Davidson, is that rare combination of privileged but not pretentious. Most of the time. Charming, funny and empathetic, he’s exactly the person you want on hand to calm you down in a crisis. Unfortunately, this doesn’t extend to his own inner crisis, as he grapples with his desire to be a musician while working for his father in a soul-sucking corporate vacuum.
When your family has always made you feel like a constant disappointment, it’s sort of unavoidable. Two years ago, Dylan and Addie’s relationship couldn’t survive its collision with his childhood best friend, Marcus. Deeply co-dependent, Dylan and Marcus have propped each other up every step of the way, their friendship akin to a brotherly bond. But these days it’s more corrosive than
supportive – and Dylan’s relationship with Addie was its latest casualty.
In The Road Trip we also meet Marcus, played by David Jonsson. Dylan’s best friend since boarding school. Marcus is fantastic company – the life-and-soul of a party, with an outrageous ability to sweet-talk himself out of almost any situation. But he’s also a self-destructive loose cannon, who will do anything to avoid looking too hard at the existential dread that’s just under the surface.
Deb, brought to life by Isabella Laughland, is Addie’s younger half-sister. Enormously fun, forthright and fiercely loyal, her greater security growing up allows her a real confidence that Addie could never quite understand. Deb and her partner, Ila, have a young baby.
In episode one, the epic road trip to a wedding in Spain begins with Addie and Deb nearly colliding with a speeding Porsche. Forced to give her ex, Dylan, and his best friend, Marcus, a lift, the gang are stuck on the most awkward road trip imaginable, for a thousand miles.
“The central idea [for The Road Trip] came while I was writing The Flatshare. I loved the idea of two people crashing into each other and then having to get into one car. The missing ingredient came to me while I was on holiday in Provence in France. It’s such a beautiful part of the world – fierce sunshine, dusty vineyards, fields of lavender… It struck me as incredibly romantic. I am rarely inspired by location specifically, but I thought, I would love to set a love story here. My car-crash idea was still there in my mind, and suddenly it occurred to me that if those two people in the cars were exes, then the book could be two love stories about one couple. Their first love story – a heady summer romance – and their second: a second-chance romance on a cramped road trip.” – Author Beth O’Leary
Paramount+ Original The Road Trip launches on the streaming service on December 26th, 2024.
