Peter Whelan’s “moving and uplifting play” The Herbal Bed, which explores the secret life of Shakespeare’s daughter, is to open at Northampton Royal and Derngate before going on a national tour.
The play was written specifically for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1996. It “provides a beautiful evocation of life in Shakespearian England” and is a “powerful exposé of the contradiction between human desire and social convention which seeks to repress it”.
The Herbal Bed involves Shakespeare’s daughter being publicly accused of adultery with her neighbour. Her husband chooses to stand by her, suing her accuser for slander. In doing so, their lives fall under the glare of intense public scrutiny. The play is based on real events in Stratford in 1613.
This first major revival of the play is a Royal and Derngate co-production with English Touring Theatre and Rose Theatre Kingston.
The cast is led by Emma Lowndes and Charlotte Wakefield. Lowndes who plays Shakespeare’s daughter Susannah Hall took the role of Lisa in Andrew Upton’s version of Maxim Gorky’s Children of the Sun at the National Theatre in 2013. Wakefield played Laurey in Northampton Royal and Derngate’s Oklahoma! in 2015.
Philip Correia, Patrick Driver, Jonathan Guy Lewis, Michael Mears and Matt Whitchurch complete the cast.
Royal and Derngate’s artistic director James Dacre directs. He said, “The Herbal Bed includes the character of Shakespeare’s granddaughter Elizabeth who went on to make her home in Northampton. It’s a moving and uplifting story, a gripping thriller, a prescient social commentary and an extraordinary romance.”
The Herbal Bed takes to the Northampton Royal stage from Friday 5 until Saturday 27 February. Press night will be Tuesday 9 February.
The play then tours to Cambridge, Liverpool, Exeter, Brighton, Salford, Bath, Oxford and Kingston.