About the Play:

Hobson's Choice is one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th century.

Hobson's Choice is a full-length comedy by Harold Brighouse. A shoemaker's daughter sets out to marry and build the business prospects of her father's seemingly ordinary apprentice. This classic comedy is part Cinderella, part King Lear, part Pygmalion, and part Samuel Beckett. It is studied in classrooms throughout the UK in much the same way The Glass Menagerie is studied in America.

Hobson's Choice takes place in Salford, a city near Manchester in northern England at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Widower Henry Hobson is struggling to handle his three grown-up daughters, each seeking a husband and an escape from the family-run boot makers shop. The youngest daughters are anxious to marry and have eligible suitors who must wait until eldest daughter, practical-minded Maggie is promised in marriage. Maggie, however has other plans which include freedom from her father's tyranny, a business and husband of her own. Her choice: Hobson's shy apprentice Will Mossop. Through Maggie's determination, they wed, set up their own shop and within a year, manage to take nearly all of Hobson's business. In the end, it is Willie who triumphs in this unlikely love story with a newfound fortitude and deals a resolution that is – Hobson's Choice.

Hobson's Choice premiered in 1916 at The Gaiety Theatre in Manchester and it has delighted generations of theatre-goers in many notable productions and movie-goers in David Lean's famous 1954 film adaptation.

Cast: 5 women, 7 men

Harold Brighouse (1882-1958) was an English playwright and author whose best known play is Hobson's Choice. He was a prominent member of a group of dramatists known as the Manchester School who were active early in the 20th century at Annie Horniman's Gaiety Theatre in Manchester. Their plays were based on country tales of Lancashire and on the struggles of working people in the industrial north of England, and they were noted for their realism. He is also became a drama critic for the Manchester Guardian.