A Casterbridge Tale. Michael Langridge in Conversation with Tracy Hayes

Michael Langridge, in conversation with Dr Tracy Hayes, talks about his latest novel, ‘A Casterbridge Tale’. Set in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, it is a crime novel featuring Detective Inspector Hawkins, a principal character from his highly acclaimed first novel ‘A Second Mrs Clare’. In ‘A Casterbridge Tale’. Hawkins must negotiate his way between his duty and his conscience, jeopardising his career and his life as he tracks down the instigators of a brutal and outrageous crime.

Mike Langridge is co-founder, with his wife Caroline, of TightGrip Productions and is an actor and director principally working at The Questors Theatre, London. He has appeared in well over one hundred plays, and his directing credits include The Hired Man, The Crucible, Nicholas Nickleby Parts 1 & 2, Great Expectations, Mrs Warren’s Profession and Sweeney Todd. In 2018, Caroline and Mike adapted and directed Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles‘ for the Questors stage. This production inspired him to write his sequel to Hardy’s great novel, ‘The Second Mrs Clare‘.

Tracy Hayes received her PhD in 2017 with a thesis investigating masculinity in the novels of Thomas Hardy. She is an English Language and Literature tutor and a History tutor. She has also been the Secretary and Website/Social Media Director for the Thomas Hardy Society and regularly organised conferences and study days. She has contributed chapters to collections on Hardy, Relationships, the Brontës, Poe and the Gothic, and runs a social media group dedicated to Hardy with over 1000 members worldwide. Her current research centres around Gothic masculinity and the antiquarian Gothic.