Directed by Win Brion
October 6 & 7, 2000

Programme Notes       [Photographs]

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 at Higher Brockhampton and died in 1928 at his home, Max gate, whch he built himself in Dorchester

The Hardy family was reasonably prosperous, although of humble background. His father was a master mason and builder whose chief passion in life was music. Jemima, his mother, had been a domestic servant, but was widely read and very ambitious for her son.

At sixteen, Thomas apprenticed to be an architect and for a time worked in London. However, his health deteriorated and he returned to his home fiver years later. At this time he began writing and submitted many poems, but all were rejected. He one commented to a friend that he would never have written a line of prose if he could have earned his living as a poet, yet it is as the author of some of the greatest English novels that he is best remembered. His characters were drawn from real people and his settings were in locations known to him.

A collection of his short stories, Life's Little Ironies, was published in 1894. One of these stories, On the Western Circuit, has been used by Frank Harvey as the basis for this play. The Day After The Fair was first presented in October 1972 at the Lyric Theatre in London.