About to be fired from her cleaning job for stealing a volume of Euripides, Jude turns her employer's outrage to shock by translating the ancient Greek on the spot. The employer, a Classics teacher, knows great talent when she sees it and the encounter kick-starts Jude's lifelong ambition to study at Oxford University.
Possessing an astonishing gift for languages, Jude will stop at nothing to achieve her dream – but she remains oblivious to the hidden barriers that her background has placed in her path…
Loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure, Howard Brenton's play Jude is a modern-day tale of unexpected genius and of our struggle to accommodate extraordinary talent. The play premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2019, directed by Edward Hall.
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