It is always an honour to get to be in the rehearsal room where the magic of a play coming together happens, to watch the characters take their first breath and the actors relax into the show.

I find that many of the characters within Babette’s Feast have to grapple with regret, and have to make decisions that one way or the other, they would regret.

When Babette arrives at the home of spinsters, Martine and Philippa, in the small remote fishing village of Berlevaag in Norway, she hands them a letter of introduction, then collapses with exhaustion at their feet.