Edward The Second

The World Premiere musical adaptation of Edward the Second is a radically realized – yet faithful-in-spirit – adaptation by Lance Hewett and Bryan Williams.

Featuring a diverse and dynamic contemporary score, in turn lyrical and dramatic, this is a tempestuous, tilted, true-life love quintet involving not just the medieval King Edward II who lost his throne and his life for his “favourite” Piers Gaveston – married to his niece Margaret — but also his vengeful Queen, Isabella, who invades England with her scheming lover Roger Mortimer. Set in a time when a queen’s adultery was treason and same-sex relations heresy punishable by death, and when the “holy chains of matrimony” turned women into property “bred to breed their husbands heirs” (is it a wonder Margaret chose Gaveston over the brutal warlords coveting her fortune?), this story is as daring and controversial now as when Marlowe penned it.