Edward Albee posed the question in 1962: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ The answer, it seems, is no one. There’s a continuing fascination with Woolf, Vita Sackville-West and the Bloomsbury set. More people have read about them than have ever read a word written by them. Woolf’s novel Orlando is returning to us in a new form. First published in 1928, the novel was memorably adapted for the screen in 1992 with Tilda Swinton. Now adapted for the stage by Sarah Ruhl, Orlando opens at the Opera House on 13 November.

Fancied by Queen Elizabeth I, Orlando, a handsome young courtier, is commanded by the Queen to stay forever young. Amazingly, he does so. Even more amazingly, on diplomatic service in Constantinople, he awakes after a debauched night transformed into a woman. He time-travels through four centuries of British history to an acceptance of himself/herself. Undoubtedly inspired by Woolf’s affair with Vita Sackville-West, the novel borrows from Vita’s own resentment that her gender prevented her from inheriting Knole, her beloved ancestral home. Contemporary interest in the spectrum of sexuality is a key to the story’s continuing hold.

On stage here, Orlando will be played by the wonderful Jacqueline McKenzie, the Queen by John Gaden; it was Quentin Crisp in the movie. McKenzie’s uncanny ability to project varying body images, as she did so memorably in St Joan in 1992, will be invaluable in this production.