It is hard today to appreciate the shock that swept through British theatre when Ibsen’s play was first performed in London in the 1880s. Dame Muriel Spark: ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’. Respected world-wide for her many novels, plays and biographies, Muriel Spark is probably best known for this short novel.

For Scottish readers one of its delights is the vivid recreation of Edinburgh with its double standards and Calvinistic rules. Jean Brodie is an unorthodox teacher who persuades her ‘set’ of girls that rules are there to be broken by the ‘elite’...with tragic results for herself and some of the girls.