Beauty and the Beast (NHB Modern Plays)

A magical re-telling of the story of Beauty and the Beast, first performed in this version by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When Beauty's father hears that his long-lost ship packed with pearls has landed safely in harbour, he sets out on a long, difficult journey to claim his fortune and rescue his family from poverty. But when, stumbling across a magic world belonging to a fearsome beast, he picks a rose as a present for his favourite daughter, the family find themselves in a nightmarish predicament from which only Beauty can rescue them... This timeless tale of the true nature of beauty and the transformational power of love is brought to glorious life in Laurence Boswell's thrilling and inventive adaptation, which draws on the origins of the tale in French folklore, and is filled with music, dance and song. Laurence Boswell's much-performed retelling of the classic fairytale was first performed at the Young Vic, London, in 1996. It was revived, in this revised version, by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2003. 'A pacy, funny, show with enough contemporary in-jokes to keep the most worn-out of parents switched on... grips throughout' - The Stage 'Boswell's well-crafted, unshowy staging of the famous fable... is admirably unpatronising' - Daily Mail 'Boswell's beautifully written script... at once beguiling and disconcertingly strange... entirely devoid of sentimentality and Disneyfied cuteness' - Telegraph

Laurence Boswell is one of the UK's leading theatre directors. As Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he directed the Spanish Golden Age Season. He is currently Artistic Director of the Ustinov Studio at Bath Theatre Royal. His adaptation of Beauty and the Beast won The Barclay Theatre Award Best Play for Children and Young People in 1997.