One of the great British stories of memory, class, desire and lost innocence
Renowned touring company Eastern Angles’ tour with new stage adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s haunting classical The Go-Between got underway at the weekend, and comes to Stamford Arts centre on September 12.
Adapted by writer Ben Musgrave (Pretend You Have Big Buildings, Bruntwood Playwriting Competition winner), it explores a long summer of secrets and scandal in rural Norfolk in 1900 and the enduring power of the past. Featuring live music and evocative visuals inspired by Norfolk’s landscape, The Go-Between presents a devastatingly bold adaptation of one of the region’s most beloved novels.
Howard Saddler (Grace; EastEnders; The Witcher) plays young Leo Colston who becomes caught in a dangerous web of desire and deception. When he is enlisted to deliver secret letters between two forbidden lovers, played by Hilary Greatorex (The Dumping Ground; Friday Night Dinner; Waterloo Road) and Jack Solloway (While the Sun Shines; See How They Run; Speculation), Leo unwittingly sets in motion events that will echo throughout the rest of his life.
Completing the cast is Emily Outred as the formidable Mrs Maudsley and Isaac Franklin as Leo’s schoolfriend Marcus Maudsley, alongside Sophie Crawford and Jake Ashton-Nelson.
As the summer unfolds Leo discovers that even the smallest actions can have devastating consequences. Jumping between Leo’s youthful summer and his adult present, this non-linear play reveals how a single season can shape an entire lifetime.
Writer Ben Musgrave comments, What makes The Go-Between extraordinary is its understanding of memory, of how the past never really leaves us. It is a novel about looking back, about how a single summer can echo across an entire lifetime, and about the damage that can be done at a formative age and carried quietly for decades. That emotional truth still feels painfully contemporary...I want this production to speak across generations, to thirteen-year-olds encountering the story for the first time, to thirty-year-olds in the midst of forming their adult selves, and to older audiences who recognise the ache of looking back and wondering how the past shaped who they became.
More than seventy years after its publication, L.P. Hartley's novel remains one of the great British stories of memory, class, desire and lost innocence.