“Another triumph for Next Stage”
Next Stage Theatre Company, with an already proven track record of producing memorable interpretations of Shaffer’s work (Equus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun), turn their considerable talents to this sparkling comedy.
Lettice Douffet has inherited from her family’s theatrical past both thespian flair and eccentricity. Bored with her job as guide in a second class stately home she seeks to enliven the daily grind with ever more colourful and implausible fantasies. These, whilst delighting the tourists, enrage the Preservation Trust whose representative, Charlotte Schoen, promptly sacks her. Despite all odds an unlikely friendship develops between the two ladies and Lotte is gradually drawn in to Lettice’s world of historical romance. However, the plot takes a dark twist when Lettice’s attempts to recreate the execution of Charles I nearly ends in tragedy with the full force of the law descending on Lettice’s flat and a prison sentence seeming inevitable. Happily it takes more than this little local difficulty to quell Lettice’s excesses and by the end of the play both she and Lotte are once more free to continue their crusade to “enlarge, enliven and enlighten” this dreary world!
Lettice and Lovage played to great acclaim in London with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack making the most of the witty plot and dialogue. Two of Next Stage’s leading actors: Joanna Bowman and Lesley Langley will recreate these roles, in what promises to be an unmissable evening of hilarious comedy .
Cast:
Rehearsal Photographs:
