A ONCE-banned tale of lust, class conflict and boundaries broken is coming to the stage in Didcot.

Restricted from the UK for 50 years when first written, Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s Miss Julie shocked critics across Europe with its frank portrayal of sexuality and inter-class relationships in 19th-century society.

The 1888 work is now widely regarded as Strindberg’s masterpiece, with its vivid depiction of the class system still being seen as pertinent in the world today.

Performed across the world and frequently adapted and updated, UK Touring Theatre is bringing its world premiere UK tour of a new English translation of the original Swedish script to the Cornerstone arts centre for night only on Friday, September 27, at 7.30pm.

The translation remains faithful to Strindberg’s original words, but has been made accessible to a modern audience through its dynamic choice of English language.

Set in Sweden on Midsummer’s Eve in 1888, The Count’s daughter, played by Felicity Rhys, and his valet Jean (Adam Redmayne) cross social and sexual boundaries and must face the consequences.

While the servants’ party continues in the barn outside, the aristocratic Miss Julie is drawn to the kitchen and to the socially ambitious Jean. What starts as a harmless flirtation soon descends into a ferocious power struggle and battle of the sexes, from which neither can escape.

Actor Redmayne told the Herald: “For me, the best thing has been getting the chance to develop our own, new translation of the play. We looked at several different English translations when were deciding to do Miss Julie and we found many of them to be quite stiff and very ‘English’ in a way.

“There are some great translations out there but many of them were written in the 1960s and 1970s so they still seemed quite old-fashioned to us. When we read Strindberg’s original text, we found that the original Swedish was so much more direct, really punchy, so we wanted to recreate this in our own English version.”

He added: “We also hope to attract a younger audience to come and see this classic drama, and also those who don’t often go to theatre but enjoy watching period dramas such as Downton Abbey on TV — we want to attract them to come and experience real live period drama on stage in front of their eyes.”

Fellow actor Rhys said: “Working on Miss Julie has been a fantastic experience, as it’s an extremely challenging role for an actress. Miss Julie goes on an emotional rollercoaster of a journey throughout the play, it’s very intense and Strindberg twists and turns the plot so masterfully.

“Ironically, although Strindberg was often called a misogynist because of the way he represents women in his work, in Miss Julie he has created one of the greatest ever stage roles for an actress — some people even call it the female Hamlet.”

The play was developed as part of Strindberg 2012 festival to mark the centennial of the author’s death. It was translated by the company as part of a script development process, in which the actors took a literal English translation of the text and worked with it practically through improvisation to develop the new script.

Director Denis Noonan said: “Miss Julie is a very powerful piece. The process of re-translating the play from scratch took about eight months, but the result is a script that I think really reflects what Strindberg originally wanted to achieve with the play; as well as being exciting and accessible to a modern audience.”

Making up the cast is Laura-Kate Gordon as cook Kristin.

Tickets £14.50 adult and £13 concessions and can be purchased from the box office on 01235 515144 or at www.cornerstone-arts.org