The Royal Shakespeare Company

Summer 1914. In order to dedicate themselves to a life of study, the King and his friends take an oath to avoid the company of women for three years. No sooner have they made their idealistic pledge than the Princess of France and her ladies-in-waiting arrive, presenting the men with a severe test of their high-minded resolve.

Shakespeare’s sparkling comedy delights in championing and then unravelling an unrealistic vow, and mischievously suggesting that the study of the opposite sex is in fact the highest of all academic endeavours. Only at the end of the play is the merriment curtailed as the lovers agree to submit to a period apart, unaware that the world around them is about to be utterly transformed by the war to end all wars.

Following the 2014 run in Stratford-upon Avon and a subsequent run in Chichester, the RSC Chichester Festival Theatre productions of Christopher Luscombe’s heart-warming double bill Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing (or Love’s Labour’s Won) will transfer to the Theatre Royal Haymarket for a limited season.