NEVER heard of the Pop-Up Opera theatre company?

You’re about to.

The lively dramatists are bringing Mozart’s famous and much loved comedy Cosí Fan Tutte to the Tacchi-Morris this September for the arts centre’s autumn season.

Pop-Up Opera’s take on the composer’s creation is inspired by our oh-so British fascination with costume dramas.

Downton Abbey meets Pride and Prejudice in their production set in an English estate with a high society picnic, traditional country house games of tennis, cricket and croquet, and some exotic eastern surprises.

Mozart’s opera tells of two sisters, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, and their fiancés, Ferrando and Guglielmo.

Wound up by a wager with the cynical Don Alfonso, the men set about testing their girls’ fidelity by posing as strangers and trying to seduce them.

Hilarity ensues, but will love win over all in the end?

As a company, Pop-Up Opera’s raison d’être to win people round who usually dismiss opera as ‘not their thing’.

The cast use props, storytelling and interaction to make audiences feel as if they have been given a backstage pass.

Tickets cost £18 or £17 for concessions – book online at www.tacchi-morris.com or call 01823-414141.

The show at the Monkton Heathfield arts centre starts at 7.30pm on Friday, September 19, after drinks and canapés in reception, courtesy of The Castle Hotel, from 6.30pm.