FOR one week only Lady Chatterley’s Lover takes centre stage in the Main House at Salisbury Playhouse.

Passion, class, love and sexual freedom are at the heart of the new adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s classic novel.

The show runs from Tuesday to Saturday. Adapted and directed by Phillip Breen, the cast includes Hedydd Dylan as Lady Chatterley and Jonah Russell as Mellors.

Dylan plays the wife of Sir Clifford Chatterley, who has returned from the war, paralysed from the waist down.

“She has to care for him and is more of a carer than a wife,” Dylan explains.

“At the point she meets the new gamekeeper Mellors she is almost at the brink of a nervous breakdown and people forget that when they think about the novel.

"Even people who have read it, they only really remember the love affair but actually it is more a story of someone finding their freedom again - their freedom for love and the freedom of their mind and body in a kind of strange post-war political climate where there is a lot of judgement because of class and sexism.”

Describing her experience of taking on the role, she said: “I have found it wonderful, it has been a really interesting journey of discovery, maybe similarly as the character discovers herself through love, I have learnt things about myself through having to face some of the challenges of the role. My own self consciousness about my body has come to the forefront and I realise how much as women we are objectified and made to question the way we look. The lovely thing I have learnt is to stop caring.”

The novel was banned in the UK until 1960. Inspired by the setting of his Nottinghamshire childhood, D. H. Lawrence’s story shows how three people, reeling from the aftermath of the Great War, struggle to survive in a world which has been blown apart.

“It has stayed very true [to the novel],” explains Dylan.

“The thing I have really enjoyed about this role, and the story, is my small contribution as the actress to remind an audience to be kind to each other. I feel like that is possibly one of the things that you might take away from seeing the play, to be tender to each other.

"Tenderness was D. H. Lawrence’s alternate title for the book. The director has focused largely on that in many different ways and it is one of the interesting things about the adaptation.”

Call the box office on 01722 320333 for tickets.