Olivia Grant. Photograph:Dominic Parkes
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Massinger's Picture Revived at Salisbury Playhouse

Salisbury Playhouse Artistic Director Philip Wilson directs a revival of The Picture - a Renaissance epic and magical story of fidelity by Salisbury-born Phillip Massinger.

Matthias, a young knight of Bohemia, goes off to the wars, taking with him an enchanted image of his wife Sophia which – his friend assures him – will indicate her fidelity: if she is challenged in love the picture will yellow; if she succumbs, it will blacken.

TV actress Olivia Grant, best known as Lady Adelaide Midwinter in BBC’s Lark Rise to Candleford and Rachel Atkins, who’s voice is known around the country as the irrepressible Vicky Hodges in Radio 4’s The Archers join the cast at one of the country’s leading regional theatres.

This sumptuous production transposes the action to the mid-nineteenth century – and the birth of that other ‘magic picture’, the photograph. It also marks the 175th anniversary of the first known photograph being made by Fox Talbot at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.

The Picture plays at the Salisbury Playhouse 30 October – 27 November.

- by Simon Cle

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