The Prince and the Pauper

Andrew Beattie's latest play is an adaptation of Mark Twain's famous novel. Twain wrote the book in 1881 and it is such a familiar story. Two boys decide to change places after a ‘chance encounter offers them an opportunity to escape their fates for the day and see how the other half lives, they eagerly swap clothes and change places in each other's lives.’

Beattie has based his play on the original novel but has made it accessible to youth actors and audiences alike by making the roles adaptable to varying cast sizes. What is useful at the front of the play text is not only a list of characters, but Beattie also tells you how you can adapt the number of roles in the text, moving from a core cast size of 14, where parts are doubled up, to the ‘theoretical possibility’ of having a cast of over 80.