LOCAL theatregoers will shortly get their opportunity to form their own opinions on what is widely regarded as one of the greatest plays of the last century.

Arcadia, Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning comedy masterpiece, arrives at Malvern’s Festival Theatre next week for a week long run from Monday, April 6 to Saturday, April 11.

The play explores the delicate relationship between the past and present and is set in a stately home in 19th century rural Derbyshire. Secret desires and professional rivalries take hold of the residents of Sidley Park where the daughter of the house, Thomasina Coverly, is a bright and talented pupil tutored by Byron's friend Septimus Hodge.

She makes a startling discovery well ahead of her time! Meanwhile, in the present day, academics Hannah Jarvis and Bernard Nightingale attempt to piece together the fragments of truth that tell her story.

Arcadia explores the delicate relationship between past and present, and is a witty and absorbing portrait of two generations of an aristocratic family as the focus moves from 1809 to now, and back to the past.

This UK tour has Dakota Blue Richards will making her stage debut as Thomasina, with other cast including Kirsty Besterman, Robert Cavanah, Tom Greaves, Nakay Kpaka, Ed MacArthur, Charlie Manton, David Mara, Flora Montgomery, Wilf Scolding, Larrington Walker and Ria Zmitrowitz.

First premiered at the National Theatre in 1993, when it was directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, Stoppard’s play is considered one of the greatest of the last century, winning countless and has twice been produced on Broadway, winning the 1995 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and the 2011 Tony Award for Best Revival of Play.

This production sees a new collaboration between English Touring Theatre (Translations, Ghosts, The Misanthrope) and Theatre Royal Brighton Productions (Dandy Dick, Blue Orange).

Stoppard himself says: ‘I’m delighted that a new tour of Arcadia, directed by the young, visionary Blanche McIntrye, is to taking place and reaching audiences across the UK. The current challenges for regional theatre in the UK mean that a production of this scale and quality are very rarely toured.'