When John Dryden and Henry Purcell collaborated on this piece of theatre in 1685, they had a political agenda: to unify the nation, 25 years after the Restoration of the monarchy, by means of a story, with music, which appealed to Britain’s semi-mythological past. What they created was a vivid tale of a divided land, broken brotherhood, and love and loss with, at its heart, a deeply-felt question of national identity: how could Arthur’s Britain reconcile its warring factions and live at peace with its very self?

We have taken this tale and made it our own, with a freely-adapted text, freely-re-arranged music, and enchanting dance, to take full advantage of the ancient space of the cathedral’s Eastern Crypt and make the piece afresh. Dryden’s text will be illuminated once again by some of Purcell’s best-loved music – “Fairest Isle” comes from “King Arthur” – whilst the staging will ensure that the piece, and the crypt, will be seen as never before in a version of the story which may have something to say to us, even now, three centuries later.