The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds

A delightful stage version of Jane Austen’s earliest novel

Catherine Morland loves a good novel and the more ‘horrid’ it is the better. At 17, she’s taken by her aunt to Bath where she encounters the social whirl denied her at home and befriends Isabella Thorpe and her boorish brother, John.

She also meets the charming but eccentric Henry Tilney with his sister Eleanor and works hard to get to know them better. However, John Thorpe has other plans and is determined to have Catherine for himself. Following a string of deceptions, Catherine finally sees through his tricks and lies.

When she is invited by her beloved Henry to his home, Northanger Abbey, fact and fiction collide fuelled by the horror of the Gothic fantasy The Mysteries of Udolpho and her wild imagination gets the better of her judgement.

Adapted by acclaimed Austen specialist Tim Luscombe, whose Mansfield Park, also produced and toured by the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, was a sell-out at the Exeter Northcott in 2012.