Oliver Goldsmith’s much-loved 18th
century comic masterpiece. 

Old-fashioned country Squire Hardcastle has a foolish fashionable wife, an oafish step-son, and beautiful and witty daughter. He hopes for a marriage between his daughter Kate and the son of his best friend, Charles Marlow, a young man who seems perfect in every way apart from his excruciating shyness in the presence of respectable ladies. Mrs Hardcastle hopes for a marriage between her son Tony Lumpkin and her ward, the heiress Constance Neville. But Tony is far more interested in local girl Bet Bouncer and Constance is far more interested in her secret fiancé George Hastings, Charles Marlow’s best friend. When Marlow and Hastings get lost en route to visit Hardcastle, Tony Lumpkin directs them to an “Inn” - which is in fact his step-father’s house. The scene is set for a series of comic misunderstandings and misadventures: in the words of the play’s sub-title,“The Mistakes of a Night”.