Quartet in Autumn
A wry and poignant ode to ageing, friendship and the strange poetry of everyday life.
It has been announced that the novelist Barbara Pym’s work is to be adapted for the stage for the very first time by 2024 Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey. The World Premiere of Quartet in Autumn, directed by the former Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe and the Bush Theatre Dominic Dromgoole, will run at the Arcola Theatre in London from 7 May - 13 June 2026.
Following the success of her novel Orbital last year, Samantha Harvey makes her stage writing debut with her new adaptation of Quartet in Autumn which brings to life Pym’s wry, poignant and hopeful meditation on life through the lives of four Londoners. Loved by many readers and writers, Barbara Pym has garnered a cult following as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century for her wit, satire and social commentary.
Samantha Harvey, writer, said: “Adapting this extraordinary novel has been surprising and joyous, and I'm delighted that for the first time ever Pym's work will be brought to the stage to find new audiences.”
In 1970s London, four co-workers approach retirement, each quietly marking time. As the seasons turn, they go about their daily rituals and routines. Marcia hoards tinned food and drifts into solitude. Letty dreams of something more. Edwin, a widower, finds refuge in the church. Norman rails against modern life. Together, they form a quartet – a fragile compact to get through the days.
Quartet in Autumn unfolds as a tender portrait of loneliness in a changing world, of the courage it takes to keep going, and the grace that can be found in the ordinary.
Venue details
- Address:
- Arcola Theatre
- 24 Ashwin Street
- London
- E8 3DL