Lettice and Lovage

Daughter of an actress who toured France with an all-female company playing only Shakespeare's history plays, Lettice Dourret has inherited both theatricality and eccentricity. Now employed as a tourist guide in a shabby stately home, she attempts to enliven its dull history with her own over-imaginative fantasies, until she is caught in the act and promptly sacked. She retreats to her basement at in Earl's Court, where she is visited by the starchy Preservation Trust o cial who red her. An unlikely friendship develops as they discover a shared loathing for the carbuncles of modern architecture and the stern, sensible Lotte is drawn into Lettice's attractive world of historical romance. This almost ends in tears after a nasty accident when the two ladies are enacting the execution of Charles I. But they manage to rise above this minor setback and continue their crusade to "enlarge, enliven and enlighten" withrenewed vigour. This delightful and witty play commenced a long run at London's Globe Theatre in 1987, starring Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack, and won the 1988 Evening Standard Best Comedy Award.