Beauty and the Beast/RSC

By Laurence Boswell

A magical re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, first performed in this version by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In Beauty and the Beast we encounter two worlds: the domestic world of Beauty's family in mid-eighteenth-century France, safe and familiar. And another world, first stumbled upon by her merchant father: a place of great riches and disturbing nightmares, dominated by the fearsome and tragic Beast.

Uniting the two is Beauty's humility and sense of duty, which slowly matures into transforming love...

'Boswell's well-crafted, unshowy staging of the famous fable... is admirably unpatronising' Daily Mail

'Boswell's beautifully written script... at once beguiling and disconcertingly strange... entirely devoid of sentimentality and Disneyfied cuteness' Daily Telegraph

This enchanting play can be performed straight or with music by Mick Sands, drawn from traditional French folk melodies. The score is available separately from the text.

Boswell's adaptation has been completely revised for the RSC production. His earlier version for the Young Vic is also available here.