Art and Eros are always superimposed, don’t you find? You cannot separate the two: the model naked in supplication before the artist; the artist exposing himself in trust. The beast of creation is always erect.

1964/1967. In a rented cottage in Suffolk, a brilliant young film director, deep in making his magnum opus, confronts the ageing star that the studio has imposed on him.

Vincent Price is about to walk out on the film, and Michael Reeves’ career hangs by a thread. Across the world, in a strange simulacrum of a Suffolk cottage created on a Hollywood lot, a great director and his star are engaged in a very different sort of power-game, as Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren take time off from making Marnie for one final confrontation.

This edition is published to coincide with the world premiere at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in February 2024.