The New Murrey and Blue blog

On 2 April this year I posted about a stage version of Tey’s wonderful The Daughter of Time, see https://murreyandblue.co.uk/2025/04/02/the-daughter-of-time-see-the-play-of-the-book/. It was showing at the Knutsford Little Theatre from the end of April to the beginning of May.

Now a play-of-the-book has reached a London venue, the Charing Cross Theatre, and will be showing from 18 July to 13 September. The ticket link is  https://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/theatre/the-daughter-of-time.

If you go to this link (https://shorturl.at/aSbuA) you can read all about, including an informative interview with the playwright, M Kilburg Reddy.

Now, I cannot be certain that the theatres are concerned with exactly the same play, or two different versions of Tey’s book. To begin with, the Charing Cross Theatre play is described as being the world premiere. If it is the same play as at the Knutsford Little Theatre, then surely the Knutsford production was the world premiere? Or am I showing my ignorance of how the world of theatre works?

Either way, the audience is bound to be captivated by the original book’s brilliance.

As it happens, another item has come to my attention that also describes The Daughter of Time. You’ll find it here: https://tinyurl.com/mr2mmkea.

The author, Dan Peterson, starts with mentioning a performance of the Bard’s Richard III that he saw some time ago: “….Richard [III] is one of the darkest villains in all of English literature, and Gary Armagnac did him full, um, justice.  Since then, though, I’ve come to have Doubts about whether Shakespeare’s portrayal of the last of the Plantagenet monarchs is even remotely fair or true to real history….”

Enter Tey’s The Daughter of Time, stage left, which book has surely introduced a huge number of people to the real Richard III. Please read Peterson’s article, which describes the plot of the book.

by viscountessw