commenting on the book's contemporary context, Paul Binding has pointed out that its famous opening phrase, "The past is a foreign country", had first been used by Hartley's friend Lord David Cecil in his inaugural lecture as Goldsmith's Professor in 1949. Ian McEwan has described his acclaimed novel Atonement (2001) as "an act of homage in some ways" to The Go-Between in an interview, recalling that while reading the novel for the first time at 14 he was "electrified" by "the way you can wrap a fictional story around real events and real things and give it a vivid quality it would not otherwise have". Ali Smith revisited the observed parallel drawn between the treatment of class and sexuality in The Go-Between and in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). D.H. Lawrence’s novel was not allowed unexpurgated circulation in Britain until after The Go-Betweens appearance, but perhaps, she speculated, Hartley's novel helped prepare the climate for the overturning of the British ban on Lawrence's work seven years later. Adaptations Play In 1960, an adaptation for stage by Louise F. Tanner was produced in Morgantown, West Virginia. Mrs. Tanner travelled to the United Kingdom to consult Hartley in person about the work. Film Playwright Harold Pinter adapted the novel into a screenplay of a film of the same name (1971), directed by Joseph Losey. Television A television adaptation starring Jim Broadbent was broadcast on BBC One on 20 September 2015. Radio On 8 July 2012, a radio adaptation by Frances Byrnes and directed by Matt Thompson was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. The production was re-broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 26 May 2013. Opera In 1991, South African composer David Earl adapted the novel as a two-act opera. Musical theatre In 2011, a musical theatre adaptation of the novel was presented by the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, West Yorkshire; Adapted by David Wood with music by Richard Taylor and lyrics by Wood and Taylor, the same production was remounted and opened at London's Apollo Theatre on 27 May 2016 and played its full twenty-week engagement, closing on 15 October 2016. Bibliography Colm O Tóibín, introduction to The Go-Between, The New York Review of Books, 2002 Adrian Wright, Foreign Country: The Life of L. P. Hartley, Tauris Parke 2001 See also 1953 in literature Lists of books References External links Fiction set in 1900 1953 British novels British novels adapted into films