JANE Austen’s millions of fans tend to have their favourites among her heroines – for many it will be Elizabeth Bennett, for some it will be Anne Elliot, but for a lot of us it is the high-spirited but often wrong-headed Emma Woodhouse. Bath Theatre Royal celebrates the Jane Austen 250th anniversary with a new production of Emma, running to Saturday 20th September before a national tour through to November.

Jane Austen has, of course, close connections with Bath, which hosts a Jane Austen festival, this year from 12th to 21st September, coinciding with Emma at the theatre. Characters in several novels come to Bath, and major scenes happen there, including particularly in Persuasion.

Adapted by Ryan Craig and directed by Stephen Unwin, the new play follows the romantic adventures of the beautiful Emma Woodhouse, who is determined that she will never marry but loves to meddle in her friends’ and neighbours’ relationships. The comic journey of Emma and her friends and neighbours includes the Regency social scenes of Bath and Weymouth. As the romantic web she weaves becomes ever more entangled, will Emma herself get swept up in true love’s net?

The cast includes rising star India Shaw-Smith as Emma, with Ed Sayer as Mr Knightley, Oscar Batterham as Philip Elton, William Chubb as Mr Woodhouse, Jade Kennedy as Jane Fairfax, Peter Losasso as Frank Churchill, Rose Quentin as Augusta Hawkins, Daniel Rainford as Robert Martin and Maiya Louise Thapar as Harriet Smith.

Set and costume design is by Ceci Caff, with lighting by Ben Ormerod, sound by John Leonard and music by Matthew Scott.

After Bath, the production will tour to the Yvonne Arnaud theatre at Guildford, Birmingham Rep, Sheffield Lyceum, Malvern Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, Chichester Festival Theatre and Poole’s Lighthouse Arts Centre (10th to 15th November).

Photographs of the cast in costume at the Pump Room, one of Bath’s Regency era laocations, by Anna Barclay