I can't explain it. I can't explain any of it to you. The line of beauty which led me to him… to here. London. Summer, 1983. Nick Guest moves into the grand Notting Hill home of his university friend Toby - and into the dazzling world of Toby's father Gerald, a newly elected Tory MP, his elegant wife Rachel, and their troubled daughter Cat. From private gardens to country estates, glittering parties to political dinners, Nick is swept up in a world of money, power and privilege. A world that promises everything - and exacts a cost. As he pursues beauty in all its forms, Nick finds himself caught between the freedoms of desire and the rigid boundaries of class, sexuality and public image in a rapidly changing Britain. Olivier Award nominee Jack Holden's ( Cruise ; Kenrex ) new adaptation of The Line of Beauty is a captivating portrait of Thatcher's Britain at its most decadent and divisive, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere production at the Almeida Theatre in October 2025. Alan Hollinghurst is the author of The Swimming-Pool Library and The Spell . He has received the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. His most recent novel, The Line of Beauty , won the Man Booker Prize for fiction and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in London. Jack Holden trained as an actor at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and has participated in the Royal Court Young Writers Programme and the Channel 4 Screenwriting Course. He was recently on attachment at the National Theatre Studio. His debut play Cruise- a kaleidoscopic, musical odyssey through Soho and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s-premiered at the Duchess Theatre in Summer 2021 to widespread critical acclaim, and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Play 2022. Its second sold-out run took place at the Apollo Theatre in August 2022, and it received its first international production in Johannesburg. Cruise premiered in Australia in February 2025, with productions in Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay forthcoming. Jack wrote the book for Club NVRLND , an immersive club musical based on J M Barrie's Peter Pan, which premiered with a sold-out run at Assembly Checkpoint, Edinburgh in Summer 2025. For the Almeida Theatre, Jack adapted Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty . The production, directed by Michael Grandage, played to sell-out audiences in October/November 2025. Jack is also developing screen projects with Working Title, Independent Entertainment, World Productions, MMXX, and Michael Grandage Company. He has taken part in development writers rooms for Joi Productions and Genial. As an actor, Jack was most recently seen in John Morton's Ten Percent (Amazon) and Stefan Golaszewski's Marriage (BBC One). He has also starred in British independent films, and on stage at the National, the RSC, the Almeida, and multiple times in the West End. Jack has also produced award-winning short films. Blood Out Of A Stone premiered at BFI Flare 2018; The Rev was backed by BFI Network and premiered at London Film Festival 2022; Under The Blue has been winning awards around the world since 2024. In January 2025, Jack made his debut as writer-director with his short film Safari , produced by My Accomplice. Together, they are developing Jack's debut writer-director feature film, Man Made .