Edward Elgar, acclaimed as England’s best-loved composer, was born on 2nd June 1857, and his 150th Anniversary is being celebrated throughout 2007.

The play Elgar and Alice is rooted in Elgar’s Worcestershire. It was inspired by the painter Catherine Moody, whose father knew Elgar in the 1930s, and by the actor Edward Hardwicke, whose father Sir Cedric Hardwicke was associated with Elgar, G.B. Shaw, Sir Barry Jackson and others through the Malvern Festival.

Cast photographs by John Twinning

The play is set in 1920 at Severn House, Hampstead, the Elgars’ home, and explores the extraordinary marriage that resulted in great English music ranging from Land of Hope and Glory to oratorios, symphonies and popular songs.

The play includes a new and ground-breaking solution to the ‘enigma’ in his Enigma Variations that has long puzzled musicologists.

In the first national tour in June 2007, performances were given exclusively at places closely associated with Elgar:

• Worcester, where Elgar was brought up, where he was organist at St George’s Catholic Church and where he frequently conducted at the Cathedral. He became a Freeman of the City, and the Elgars lived in Malvern, Worcestershire, until 1904.
  
• Hampstead, where the Elgars lived at Severn House from 1912 to 1920.

• East Grinstead, Sussex, near the country retreat that the Elgars rented while living in Hampstead.

• Harrogate, which commemorates Elgar’s many holiday visits in an Elgar Walk.

(The archive photographs on this site appear by courtesy of the Elgar Birthplace Museum.)

See the Tour & Sponsors page venue and performance details.

• Oxford, where the entire LSO played a celebratory concert at Oxford Town Hall when Oxford University granted Elgar an honorary doctorate in music.
• Hereford, where the Elgars lived from 1904 to 1912, and where Elgar was conductor and guest of honour at Three Choirs Festivals that included his music.

Worcester News, 7th June 2007

Sir Edward Elgar is one moment playful, the next cantankerous. He is as unapproachable as he is engaging and Gerald Harper portrays that brilliantly.

As the tensions between Elgar and Lady Alice (played by Janet Hargreaves) surface, so do the insights into their marriage.   He disregards Alice's poetry, treats her, at times, like a child and it's upsetting to watch. He repeatedly tells her she doesn't understand him, never has and never will, and it's heartbreaking.   Alice, although physically fragile, is a strong woman.  It would be easy to pity her - even begin to dislike Elgar - if it was not so obvious how much they needed each other.