Arcadia

Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house, in the years 1809-1812 and 1993, juxtaposing the activities of two modern scholars and the house’s current residents with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier.In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor, Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron (who is an unseen guest in the house). In 1989, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in 1809 is gradually revealed.For more information, go to www.dramat.org.