Jude (NHB Modern Plays)
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About to be fired from her cleaning job for stealing a volume of Euripides, Jude turns her employer's outrage to shock by translating the ancient Greek on the spot. The employer, a Classics teacher, knows great talent when she sees it and the encounter kick-starts Jude's lifelong ambition to study at Oxford University. Entirely self-taught and possessing an astonishing gift for languages, Jude will stop at nothing to achieve her dream – but she remains oblivious to the hidden barriers that her background has placed in her path...
Howard Brenton's play, loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure, is a modern day tale of unexpected genius and of our struggle to accommodate extraordinary talent.
Jude premiered at Hampstead Theatre in May 2019.
Howard Brenton
Howard Brenton is one of the UK's most respected dramatists. His acclaimed plays include The Romans In Britain, Bloody Poetry, Weapons of Happiness, Pravda with David Hare and, more recently, In Extremis, Anne Boleyn and Doctor Scroggy's War for Shakespeare's Globe, Paul and Never So Good for the National Theatre, and 55 Days, The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Drawing the Line and Lawrence After Arabia for Hampstead Theatre. He also wrote fourteen episodes of BBC spy drama Spooks.
More by Howard Brenton
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