Jane Austen's EMMA to open at Theatre Royal Bath prior to national tour
The 250th anniversary of Bath’s favourite writer is celebrated in fitting style with a new stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s comedy of manners, Emma, which launches a national tour at Theatre Royal Bath on 11 September.
The historic Bath venue is the perfect setting to launch this new tour as the Georgian splendour of the city encapsulates the backdrop for many of Austen’s characters and stories.
The beautiful, high-spirited Emma Woodhouse is determined that she will never marry but loves to meddle in her friends’ and neighbours’ relationships. When her confidante and former governess, Miss Taylor weds her fiancé Mr Weston, Emma, having introduced the couple, takes credit for the marriage and decides that a future in matchmaking lies ahead of her.
So begins a comic journey through the lives and loves of Emma’s friends and neighbours, embracing the burgeoning Regency social scene of Bath and Weymouth. But as the romantic web she weaves amongst her friends becomes ever more entangled, will Emma herself get swept up in true love’s wake…?
Adapted by Ryan Craig and directed by Stephen Unwin, the cast includes rising star India Shaw-Smith, soon to be seen on TV in Spartacus: House of Usher, as Austen’s heroine Emma, alongside Oscar Batterham, William Chubb, Jade Kennedy, Peter Losasso, Rose Quentin, Daniel Rainford, Ed Sayer and Maiya Louise Thapar, with Jordan Kilshaw, Lukwesa Mwamba, Charlie Norton, Hugh Osborne and Jordan Stamatiadis.
Following Bath, the tour will visit Guildford, Birmingham, Sheffield, Malvern, Oxford, and Poole.