The prince's play

'The Prince's Play' is Tony Harrison's trenchant, rhyming-couplet update of 'Le Roi S'amuse', the banned Victor Hugo drama that was the basis for 'Rigoletto'. The story of an authoritarian ruler who rapes the daughter of his jester is translated here to a 19th century English world of 'fillies and fizz', of corrupt royal privilege where, for preferment or pardon, courtiers are prepared to prostitute their own wives and daughters to the Prince's lust. 'The Prince's Play' premiered at the Royal National Theatre in April 1996.