Moon Tiger

Claudia Hampton is a popular historian, a strong, beautiful and difficult woman. Now in her seventies, she is plotting her greatest work - a history of the world. She looks back over her life growing up between the wars and remembers the people who have shared its triumphs and tragedies. There is Gordon, her adored brother; Jasper, the charming, untrustworthy lover and father of her daughter, and Tom, her one great love, both found and lost during the El Alamein campaign when she worked as a war correspondent.

Against a background of world events, Claudia’s own remarkable story provokes a sharp combination of sadness, shock and amusement. Simon Reade’s adaptation is introduced by Penelope Lively herself.

Compelling, moving and eloquent, one of the great novels of the 20th century is brought to the stage for the first time. Winner of the 1987 Booker Prize, Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger is a haunting story of loss and desire.

Simon Reade has previously adapted Michael Morpurgo’s Toro! Toro! and The Mozart Question as well as the phenomenally successful stage and screen versions of Private Peaceful. His other plays include Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, Not the End of the World, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, Pride and Prejudice, and for the RSC, Ted Hughes’ Tales From Ovid, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Epitaph for the Official Secrets Act.