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…

World Premiere. Howard Brenton’s latest 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.