In Extremis

This title is re-issued alongside its return to Shakespeare's Globe in May 2007: Howard Brenton's take on the Abelard and Heloise story. A new spirit of philosophical and religious enquiry is growing in 12th-century France. In its vanguard is the brilliant Peter Abelard, a man of great learning, independence of mind, and sensuality. He starts a war of ideas with the powerful Abbot and Pope-maker, Bernard of Clairvaux, the arch-priest of medieval mysticism and austerity. But when Abelard begins a wild affair with his equally brilliant but disastrously connected student Heloise, his enemies find just the pretext they need to destroy him. Mainly known for populist Shakespeare in its Elizabethan open-air theatre, the Globe forged into virgin territory in 2006 with this 'first': a new play by a well-known living writer. Its success was such that it is being revived in Spring.