19:30, Fri 24th – Sun 26th October 2008 at Friends of the Peterhouse Theatre
Michaelmas Week 2 to Week 3

Camelot has been bewitched by Merlin. A kind of dramatic schizophrenia runs amok in Cocteau's ambiguously ironic, Belle Epoque fairyland of multiple realities, populated by a cast of Arthurian characters who have almost nothing to do with conventional Arthurian tradition at all. In this 'false' world hidden desires are let loose by fraudulent selves, while the 'real' selves recognise only their own innocence. As rumours and metamorphoses carry the plot through elegant contortions, life onstage continually threatens to collapse. Camelot waits in suspense, hoping that Galahad, the poet-knight, will be able to dissipate Merlin's opium-like charms, restoring the more dignified normality of 'Real Life'. 'The Knights of the Round Table' explores, with the author's usual stylish eccentricity and panache, the themes of art versus nature, illusion versus reality, and identity.

The script has been translated by W. H. Auden from the original French.