Edith persuaded the poet and dramatist Tony Harrison…

Edith persuaded the poet and dramatist Tony Harrison, recent winner of the David Cohen Prize 2015, the Pen/Pinter Prize and the European prize for Literature, to think about writing a new version or adaptation of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. It was intended to perform it in the theatre in the real ‘Tauris’, the ancient site of Tauric Chersonesos at Sevastopol in the southern Crimea. The e Russian annexation have made this impossible.

During the academic year 2010-11 he took up a position in the Classics Department at Royal Holloway as Leverhulme Artist in Residence.In September 2011 he and Edith conducted a reconnaissance trip to the ancient Greek sites in the area, in company with two archaeologists (David Braund and Jane Harrison) and the actress Sian Thomas. The play is set during the Crimean War…