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About to be fired from her cleaning job for stealing a volume of Euripides, Jude turns her employer's outrage to shock by translating the ancient Greek on the spot. The employer, a Classics teacher, knows great talent when she sees it and the encounter kick-starts Jude's lifelong ambition to study at Oxford University.
Possessing an astonishing gift for languages, Jude will stop at nothing to achieve her dream – but she remains oblivious to the hidden barriers that her background has placed in her path…
The play premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2019, directed by Edward Hall.
"Brenton's Judith is a fascinating character, an outsider who — despite the fierce intensity of her aspirations — can see the reality of the host nation... a humorous satire on the Oxford and England we know so well" —The Arts Desk
Howard Brenton, FRSL, is a renowned playwright and author. His many plays include The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, adapted from the novel by Robert Tressell (Liverpool Everyman and Chichester Festival Theatre, 2010); Anne Boleyn (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2010 and 2011); 55 Days (Hampstead Theatre, 2012); #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); Drawing the Line (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); Doctor Scroggy's War (Shakespeare's Globe, 2014); Lawrence After Arabia (Hampstead Theatre, 2016); The Blinding Light (Jermyn Street Theatre, 2017); The Shadow Factory (NST City, Southampton, 2018); Jude (Hampstead Theatre, 2019); Cancelling Socrates (Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2022) and Churchill in Moscow (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, 2025).
He has collaborated severeal times with other writers (e.g., Moscow Gold with Tariq Ali, RSC, 1990), and has adapted various classics, particularly Strindberg's Dances of Death (Gate Theatre, 2013), Miss Julie (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, and Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2017), and Creditors (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, and Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2019). He has also writtne for the screen, most notably on the BBC1 drama series Spooks (2001–05; BAFTA Best Drama Series, 2003).