The Winter's Tale

When Leontes, Sicilian king, becomes convinced his pregnant wife Hermione is conducting an affair with his closest friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia, he is so enraged he banishes her newborn child, while Hermione apparently dies of grief. Sixteen years later, the child, Perdita, having been raised in Bohemia by shepherds, is in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes, who forbids their marriage. The lovers travel to Leontes’ court seeking happiness, which they find – in ways nobody expected. Blanche McIntyre directs a new version of Shakespeare’s great play of the irrational and inexplicable. Set in a world of monsters, gods and natural disasters, travel from the stifling atmosphere of the Sicilian court to the unbuttoned joy of a Bohemian festival.