A FRESH interpretation of the HG Wells classic, The Time Machine, comes to the stage of The Courtyard in Hereford, this summer.

The general plot will be well-known to many movie fans, because the HG Wells novella story was turned into a popular science fiction film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1960, starring Rod Taylor as the intrepid time traveller.

And in 2002, another film was made of The Time Machine, starring Guy Pearce.

Now a stage production of the intriguing yarn will present HG Well’s rather dystopian vision of the future.

A spokesman said: “From the creators of Austen’s Women, Dyad Productions present a captivating and clever adaption taking audiences into the unknown. A Victorian time traveller transcends across the ages from 1900 to the far future, discovering the fate of human endeavours and uncovering dark fears.

“ Can we change the future? Or has the end already begun?”

Wells published the Time Machine in 1895, and the plot reveals end of the century Victorian anxieties about industrialised societies and social decline.

In the distant future, the delicate Eloi are charming but ineffective beings, and they are systematically eaten by the brutal Morlocks: the implication being that human nature has divided down the middle, with one half lacking even the instinct for self preservation, and the other side reverting to cannibalism.

Wells’s novel also broke new ground by presenting the imagery of the dying earth, beneath an immense red sun.

The spokesman added: “A philosophical journey, a nightmare adventure, a cautionary tale. Writer and director Elton Townend Jones and producer Rebecca Vaughan have created a new radical stage version of this book.”

The Time Machine will be in The Courtyard’s Main House on Saturday July 28, at 7.30pm.

To book tickets, or for more information contact the Box Office on 01432 340555 or visit www.courtyard.org.uk.