The Tower / Ruy Blas

Features two stories written in the 1830s: "The Tower" - a riotously inaccurate retelling of a notorious royal scandal from fourteenth-century France; and "Ruy Blas" - named after its low-born hero, forced to masquerade as an aristocrat as part of his disgraced master's revenge against the Queen.

"The Tower and Ruy Blas, written in the 1830s by two of the most eminent French writers of their time, provide us with a fascinating insight into early Romantic drama which swept the classical verities of Racine, Marivaux and Beaumarchais from the stage and replaced them with a melange of melodrama, German Sturm und Drang and Shakespearean complexity. In the fashion of the time, both plays are set in the past. The Tower is a riotously inaccurate retelling of a notorious royal scandal from fourteenth-century France. The text, full of unexpected developments and shocking revelations, has a twisted history of its own: written by the little-known Frederick Gaillardet, it was taken on and 'improved' by Alexandre Dumas pere at a late stage, as much to add his famous name to the credits as his literary expertise to the play. Set in seventeenth-century Spain, Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas is named after its low-born hero, forced to masquerade as an aristocrat as part of his disgraced master's revenge against the Queen. Noble in heart, Ruy Blas soon proves a champion of the poor and all but wins what he most wants in the world: the Queen herself. Hugo's most admired and, in France, most frequently staged play, it has never been performed in its original form in English."