A brand-new production is coming to Gloucestershire for two unique performances starring Game of Thrones, Endeavour and Wolf Hall actor, Anton Lesser, alongside Lucia Bonbright and a musical programme from Orchestra of the Swan on Saturday 21 June 2025.
Telling the story of English novelist and poet, Thomas Hardy, A Beautiful Thread — Thomas Hardy in Words and Music at Painswick Rococo Garden weaves the dramatics of Hardy's life with his poetry and books, including Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d'Ubervilles and Jude the Obscure.
Produced by Hambletts Productions, the same team that brought its sellout Red Sky at Sunrise: Laurie Lee in Words and Music to Painswick in summer 2024, A Beautiful Thread celebrates Hardy’s addition of music in his work, by providing an accompaniment performed by Orchestra of the Swan — devised by the orchestra's artistic director, David Le Page.
The musical programme adopts a Mellstock folk band style that combines West Gallery music from the village churches of the 1840s with Holst, Warlock and contemporary folk, to help create a dramatic backdrop to the literature.
Alongside Anton, who also stars as Major Partagaz in Andor, currently streaming on Disney+, Lucia will assist in bringing a hugely varied cast to life, ranging from Hardy himself, his mother Jemima and his wives, Emma and Florence; to George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf, as well as the immortal characters from Hardy's novels.
Adapted by writer, Deirdre Shields, who has worked with Alexander Armstrong and Sally Phillips, the show highlights Hardy's humour, his reaction to the rapidly changing time period he lived through and his global reach.
Anton said: 'Words and Music is a kind of unique genre, neither pure reading, nor acting, but with an immediacy that comes from the huge emotional impact the music has upon the words — and vice versa — and the interplay we as actors enjoy with the musicians on-stage.
'Quite simply, it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done!'
Two showings of A Beautiful Thread — Thomas Hardy in Words and Music will be performed outdoors at Painswick Rococo Garden on Saturday 21 June 2025 with one at 3.30pm and one at 7.30pm — in case of extreme bad weather it will be moved into Painswick Church.
Tickets cost £45 per person, which includes entry to Painswick Rococo Garden, and can be booked online at rococogarden.digitickets.co.uk/event-tickets.
