The Circle opens a new UK tour at Bath's Theatre Royal

A new UK tour of Somerset Maugham’s classic play The Circle is set to open at the Theatre Royal Bath appearing from Wednesday 10 to Saturday 20 January starring Jane Asher (Holby City, Alfie), Clive Francis (The Larkins, The Crown) and Nicholas Le Prevost (Shakespeare in Love, The War of the Worlds).

Lady Kitty, a society beauty, notoriously abandoned her stuffy husband Clive Champion-Cheney and young son to elope with the handsome Lord Porteous. Thirty years later, love’s young dream has descended into non-stop squabbling. Meanwhile Clive and Lady Kitty’s son Arnold, faces the same marital fate, as his wife Elizabeth threatens to elope with the dashing Teddie Luton. Will history come full circle? Or can one generation learn from their parents’ mistakes?

Somerset Maugham’s elegant social satire explores the conflict between romance and responsibility with his characteristically shrewd understanding of human nature. First staged in 1921, the play has remained a firm favourite with audiences ever since.

Jane Asher stars as Lady Kitty. Her many screen appearances include Holby City, playing the role of Lady Byrne; the comedy I Give It A Year; Stephen Poliakoff's five-part BBC drama Dancing on the Edge; CBBC’s sci-fi series Eve, and the BBC1 sitcom, The Old Guys. Having worked in film and television as a child, Jane’s extensive credits over the past seven decades also include Alfie, Alice in Wonderland, The Quartermass Xperiment, The Palace, Brideshead Revisited, Paris By Night, Wish Me Luck, Crossroads, The Mistress and Poirot. She has performed in plays at the National Theatre, Royal Court, in the West End and on Broadway. Jane’s many theatre credits include An American in Paris: The Musical, Things We Do For Love and Festen in the West End; Pride and Prejudice at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre; Moon Tiger at the Theatre Royal and on UK tour in 2014, and Charley’s Aunt which toured to Bath in 2012. Her previous appearances at the Theatre Royal also include What the Butler Saw in 2001, The Reluctant Debutante in 2011 and A Song at Twilight in 2019.

Clive Francis stars as Clive Champion-Cheney, marking his eleventh production in Bath since 1985; a list which, most recently, includes I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, I Don’t Have A Clue in 2023 and Enron in 2010. His extensive screen credits range from playing Francis Poldark in the 1975 Poldark series to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, The Crown and, most recently, The Larkins. On stage he has performed at the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and in the West End on numerous occasions. His one-man production of A Christmas Carol has taken him across the UK and to Ireland, France and Singapore. Clive is also a successful caricaturist, illustrator and playwright.

Nicholas Le Prevost, who stars as Lord Porteous, was last seen at the Theatre Royal Bath in the title role in Uncle Vanya in 2008. His many previous performances on the Bath stage 

include How The Other Half Loves for The Peter Hall Company 2007, and Peter Hall’s hilarious productions of the Feydeau farces Where There’s A Will with Elaine Paige in 2003, and An Absolute Turkey with Felicity Kendal in 1993, for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award. He also received an Olivier Award nomination for his role as Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady at the National Theatre. His many television and film appearances include The Larkins, The War of the Worlds, Cranford, The Camomile Lawn, Clockwise, Land Girls, Up the Garden Path, Mary Whitehouse, Absolute Power and The Murder Room.

Pete Ashmore, whose television credits include Silent Witness and The Crown, plays the role of Arnold. He last performed at Bath’s Theatre Royal in Mansfield Park in 2012. The role of Elizabeth is played by Olivia Vinall, whose stage credits include King Lear and Othello at the National Theatre, and Women Beware Women at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Her screen credits include Roadkill, The Woman in White and Apple Tree Yard. Daniel Burke, who plays Teddie, recently performed in Troilus and Cressida and Imperium Part 1 and Part 2 at the RSC and in the West End. His screen credits include the Netflix series The Witcher. Robert Maskell, who appears as Murray, has previously appeared at the Theatre Royal Bath in End of the Rainbow in 2011 and Birds of a Feather in 2012. His recent West End stage credits include Fiddler on the Roof, La Cage aux Folles and The Sound of Music.

The popular British novelist, playwright and short-story writer, Somerset Maugham, was the highest-paid author in the world in the 1930s. His plays include The Letter and The Constant Wife, and his novels include Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence.