The 250th anniversary of Bath’s favourite writer is celebrated in fitting style with a new stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s comedy of manners, Emma, that will play a week’s run at Lighthouse Poole from Monday 10 to Saturday 15 November.
The beautiful, high-spirited Emma Woodhouse is determined that she will never marry but loves to meddle in her friends’ and neighbours’ relationships. When her confidante and former governess, Miss Taylor weds her fiancé Mr Weston, Emma, having introduced the couple, takes credit for the marriage and decides that a future in matchmaking lies ahead of her.
So begins a comic journey through the lives and loves of Emma’s friends and neighbours, embracing the burgeoning Regency social scene of Bath and Weymouth. But as the romantic web she weaves amongst her friends becomes ever more entangled, will Emma herself get swept up in true love’s wake…?
Jane Austen’s enduring novel is filled with memorable characters – the dashing Mr Knightley, Emma’s friends Jane Fairfax and Harriet Smith, the mercenary Reverend Elton and his delightfully pretentious wife Augusta. This new 250th anniversary stage production is adapted by Ryan Craig, whose recent works include 1984, which played Lighthouse in 2024.
Appearing in the title role, India Shaw-Smith trained at LAMDA and has worked across theatre, film and television. Her stage work includes productions with The National Theatre of Scotland, Run At It In The Countryside written/directed by Mark Ravenhill and a series of notable plays in Vancouver, including The Pillowman and Gruesome Playground Injuries (Untold Wants Theatre Inc.). On screen, she plays the lead in the upcoming indie feature The Pines Still Whisper, and her television credits include Vanity Fair (ITV), Supernatural (CW), and Andor S2 (Disney/Lucasfilm). Most recently, she stars as series regular Viridia in Spartacus: The House of Ashur, premiering this autumn on STARZ.
Playing Mr Woodhouse, William Chubb’s many stage credits include Uncle Vanya (Orange Tree); Farm Hall (Tour); The Tempest (Deborah Warner, Bath), The Taxidermist’s Daughter (Chichester), Witness For The Prosecution (County Hall, London), Othello (Shakespeare’s Globe), This House (National Tour), Racing Demon (Bath), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, (Old Vic), King Lear (Old Vic), In The Depths of Dead Love (The Print Room), Lawrence After Arabia (Hampstead), Waste, Great Britain, Othello, Scenes from an Execution (National Theatre),
Oscar Batterham is played by Philip Elton) whose stage credits includeA Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story (Birmingham Repertory Theatre) The Other Boleyn Girl (Chichester Festival Theatre); Noises Off (West End); The Egyptians (Gulbenkian Theatre); Richard III, All’s Well That Ends Well (RSC); Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (West End); The Whale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The One That Got Away (Theatre Royal Bath).
Ed Sayer (George Knightley), Maiya Louise Thapar )Harriet Smith), Oscar Batterham (Philip Elton), Daniel Rainford (Robert Martin), Peter Losasso (Frank Churchill), Jade Kennedy (Jane Fairfax) and Rose Quentin (Augusta) complete the cast.
Event Details: Jane Austen’s EMMA
Book tickets direct on the Poole Lighthouse website.
