The Anastasia File by Royce Ryton
This spell-binding play tells the intriguing story of Anastasia, Grand Duchess of Russia, and her fate after the execution of Czar Nicholas and his family in July 1918.
Did the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, die with the rest of the Imperial Family at Ekaterinberg in 1918? Or was she the girl who was rescued from a Berlin canal in 1920? The obscurity surrounding Anastasia's fate after the Russian Revolution in 1918 is one of the biggest mysteries of
the 20th Century.
This play presents the case for and against 'Mrs Manahan' - we see, in flashback, the life of the girl found in an asylum in 1920. Is Anastasia genuine? Why did some of her relatives reject her? Was it for the Romanov fortune waiting in the Bank of England or for some more complex reason?
Even the discovery in the 1990's of what was believed to be the families' remains outside Ekaterinburg where they perished has shed little light on her story and experts in DNA testing cannot agree if she is, in fact, still missing.