5 Ways to Fix Kindle Dictionary Not Working - Guiding Tech - Dictionary

One of the biggest advantages of reading a book on Amazon Kindle is to instantly understand the meaning of a word from the inbuilt dictionary. However, if you are dependent on this feature and you run into a problem using the same, it can disrupt your reading experience. Therefore, we want to show you everything you can do if your Kindle dictionary is not working.

In this article, we’ve added five tried-and-tested methods to fix the issue. We’ll also show you how to add a dictionary to your Kindle if you are unable to access it in the first place. But before we get into all of that, let us understand more about the problem itself.

Note: The methods listed in this guide will work on all versions of Kindle including Kindle Paperwhite and Oasis.

Why Is Dictionary Not Working on Kindle

Here are some of the reasons why the dictionary feature is not working on Kindle:

• The dictionary is not downloaded to your Kindle reader.
• You have not enabled the right dictionary.
• The dictionary has not been downloaded properly on your Kindle reader.
• You are using your Kindle offline: Wikipedia and word translation will not work without the internet.
• There are some software-related bugs on your Kindle reader.

While Kindle is a mostly simple, single-purpose device, it still isn’t free from flaws. Over the years, we’ve run into many problems. However, resolving them is easy as well. We’ll first take a look at how to add a dictionary to Kindle in the first place.

How to Add Dictionary to Kindle

If you are unable to use the dictionary feature on your Kindle, chances are that the dictionary has not been added to your Kindle reader in the first place. Here’s how you can add a dictionary to your Kindle and set it as a default dictionary for the particular language.

Step 1: Connect your Kindle to the internet and open the library.

Step 2: Scroll down to find the Dictionaries section.

Step 3: You will see a collection of dictionaries. Select the one you want to use and tap on the three dots icon.

Step 4: Tap on Download. The dictionary will now be downloaded on your Kindle reader.

Step 5: Tap anywhere on the screen and select the downward-facing arrow on the topmost section of the screen.

Step 6: Tap on all Settings.

Step 7: Tap on ‘Language & Dictionaries’ followed by Dictionaries.

Step 8: Tap on the language of the dictionary you downloaded.

Step 9: Select the dictionary you just downloaded.

Now, you can use the selected dictionary while reading a book on your Kindle ebook reader.

However, if you are facing problems with the dictionary, we’ll help you resolve them in the next section.

How to Fix if Dictionary Function Stopped Working on Kindle

Here are five easy ways in which you can fix the Kindle dictionary that is not working properly while you are reading books.

1. Re-Download the Dictionary

If you just downloaded a dictionary and it is not working, the chances are that it wasn’t downloaded properly and faced an interruption in the process. Further, the downloaded dictionary may also be corrupted and hence, you aren’t able to use it. Therefore, you can delete the dictionary and download it again.

Step 1: Open the library and scroll down to find and open the Dictionaries section.

Step 2: Tap on the three dots icon on the dictionary that you downloaded.

Step 3: Tap on Remove Download.

The downloaded dictionary will be removed. You now need to download it again.

Step 4: Tap on the three dots icon on the dictionary you want to re-download.

Step 5: Tap on Download. The dictionary will be downloaded onto your Kindle device.

Once downloaded, you can go to Settings > Language and Dictionaries > Dictionaries and select the dictionary you just downloaded.

2. Check the Internet Connection

If you want to use Wikipedia to find the meaning of a word or translate a word, you have to disable airplane mode and use an internet connection on your Kindle. Only basic language dictionaries can be used offline.

3. Restart Kindle

Shutting down your Kindle shuts down all the operations and possibly clears the bug causing the issue as well. Therefore, restarting your Kindle can help fix the problem and you can use the dictionary without issues. Here’s how you can restart your Kindle reader.

Step 1: Tap anywhere on your screen if you are reading a book. If you are on the home page, jump to Step 2.

Step 2: Tap on the downward-facing arrow to open the control panel and go to All Settings.

Step 3: Tap on Device Options.

Step 4: Tap on Restart and select Yes to confirm.

Alternatively, you can also press the power button to restart your Kindle.

4. Update Kindle

If several readers are facing a problem while using the dictionary on their Kindle devices, Amazon will take note of it and release a firmware update to fix the issue. Here’s how you can update your Kindle reader.

Step 1: Tap anywhere on your screen if you are reading a book. If you are on the home page, jump to Step 2.

Step 2: Tap on the downward-facing arrow icon to open the control panel and go to All Settings.

Step 3: Tap on Device Options.

Step 4: Tap on Advanced Options.

Step 5: Tap on Update Your Kindle. Your device will restart after the firmware update is complete.

If the option is greyed out, your Kindle is already running on the latest software version.

5. Reset Kindle

If none of the above methods work, try resetting your Kindle reader. Once you reset it, all the configurations and settings will go back to their default values. Therefore, any misconfiguration causing your Kindle’s dictionary to not work properly will be fixed once you reset it.

Here’s what happens if you reset your Kindle:

• You will lose all your data, including your books, documents, and settings.
• You will need to re-download any content that you want to keep.
• You will need to sign in to your Amazon account again.

Here’s how to reset your Kindle.

Step 1: Tap anywhere on your screen if you are reading a book. If you are on the home page, jump to Step 2.

Step 2: Tap on the downward-facing arrow icon to open the control panel and go to All Settings.

Step 3: Tap on Device Options.

Step 4: Tap on Reset.

Step 5: Tap on yes to confirm and wait for it to complete the process.

That is everything you need to do if the dictionary is not working on Kindle. If you have any further questions, look at the FAQ section below.

FAQs on Kindle Dictionary Not Working

1. How many dictionaries are available on Kindle?

Around 46 dictionaries featuring the most widely spoken languages are available on Kindle.

2. Are dictionaries free to use on Kindle?

Yes. You can download any dictionary from Kindle’s inbuilt library for free.

3. How to change the dictionary for a language while I read a book?

Long-tap on the word > tap on the name of the dictionary > Switch the default dictionary. That allows you to switch the dictionary to a different language.

Understand Every Word You Read

We hope this article helps you fix the problem and use dictionaries without any issues on your Kindle. This way, you can never have any doubts regarding a sentence that you read in a book. Further, understanding the meaning of new words also helps you get better at the language!

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5 Ways to Fix Kindle Dictionary Not Working - Guiding Tech - Dictionary

One of the biggest advantages of reading a book on Amazon Kindle is to instantly understand the meaning of a word from the inbuilt dictionary. However, if you are dependent on this feature and you run into a problem using the same, it can disrupt your reading experience. Therefore, we want to show you everything you can do if your Kindle dictionary is not working.

In this article, we’ve added five tried-and-tested methods to fix the issue. We’ll also show you how to add a dictionary to your Kindle if you are unable to access it in the first place. But before we get into all of that, let us understand more about the problem itself.

Note: The methods listed in this guide will work on all versions of Kindle including Kindle Paperwhite and Oasis.

Why Is Dictionary Not Working on Kindle

Here are some of the reasons why the dictionary feature is not working on Kindle:

• The dictionary is not downloaded to your Kindle reader.
• You have not enabled the right dictionary.
• The dictionary has not been downloaded properly on your Kindle reader.
• You are using your Kindle offline: Wikipedia and word translation will not work without the internet.
• There are some software-related bugs on your Kindle reader.

While Kindle is a mostly simple, single-purpose device, it still isn’t free from flaws. Over the years, we’ve run into many problems. However, resolving them is easy as well. We’ll first take a look at how to add a dictionary to Kindle in the first place.

How to Add Dictionary to Kindle

If you are unable to use the dictionary feature on your Kindle, chances are that the dictionary has not been added to your Kindle reader in the first place. Here’s how you can add a dictionary to your Kindle and set it as a default dictionary for the particular language.

Step 1: Connect your Kindle to the internet and open the library.

Step 2: Scroll down to find the Dictionaries section.

Step 3: You will see a collection of dictionaries. Select the one you want to use and tap on the three dots icon.

Step 4: Tap on Download. The dictionary will now be downloaded on your Kindle reader.

Step 5: Tap anywhere on the screen and select the downward-facing arrow on the topmost section of the screen.

Step 6: Tap on all Settings.

Step 7: Tap on ‘Language & Dictionaries’ followed by Dictionaries.

Step 8: Tap on the language of the dictionary you downloaded.

Step 9: Select the dictionary you just downloaded.

Now, you can use the selected dictionary while reading a book on your Kindle ebook reader.

However, if you are facing problems with the dictionary, we’ll help you resolve them in the next section.

How to Fix if Dictionary Function Stopped Working on Kindle

Here are five easy ways in which you can fix the Kindle dictionary that is not working properly while you are reading books.

1. Re-Download the Dictionary

If you just downloaded a dictionary and it is not working, the chances are that it wasn’t downloaded properly and faced an interruption in the process. Further, the downloaded dictionary may also be corrupted and hence, you aren’t able to use it. Therefore, you can delete the dictionary and download it again.

Step 1: Open the library and scroll down to find and open the Dictionaries section.

Step 2: Tap on the three dots icon on the dictionary that you downloaded.

Step 3: Tap on Remove Download.

The downloaded dictionary will be removed. You now need to download it again.

Step 4: Tap on the three dots icon on the dictionary you want to re-download.

Step 5: Tap on Download. The dictionary will be downloaded onto your Kindle device.

Once downloaded, you can go to Settings > Language and Dictionaries > Dictionaries and select the dictionary you just downloaded.

2. Check the Internet Connection

If you want to use Wikipedia to find the meaning of a word or translate a word, you have to disable airplane mode and use an internet connection on your Kindle. Only basic language dictionaries can be used offline.

3. Restart Kindle

Shutting down your Kindle shuts down all the operations and possibly clears the bug causing the issue as well. Therefore, restarting your Kindle can help fix the problem and you can use the dictionary without issues. Here’s how you can restart your Kindle reader.

Step 1: Tap anywhere on your screen if you are reading a book. If you are on the home page, jump to Step 2.

Step 2: Tap on the downward-facing arrow to open the control panel and go to All Settings.

Step 3: Tap on Device Options.

Step 4: Tap on Restart and select Yes to confirm.

Alternatively, you can also press the power button to restart your Kindle.

4. Update Kindle

If several readers are facing a problem while using the dictionary on their Kindle devices, Amazon will take note of it and release a firmware update to fix the issue. Here’s how you can update your Kindle reader.

Step 1: Tap anywhere on your screen if you are reading a book. If you are on the home page, jump to Step 2.

Step 2: Tap on the downward-facing arrow icon to open the control panel and go to All Settings.

Step 3: Tap on Device Options.

Step 4: Tap on Advanced Options.

Step 5: Tap on Update Your Kindle. Your device will restart after the firmware update is complete.

If the option is greyed out, your Kindle is already running on the latest software version.

5. Reset Kindle

If none of the above methods work, try resetting your Kindle reader. Once you reset it, all the configurations and settings will go back to their default values. Therefore, any misconfiguration causing your Kindle’s dictionary to not work properly will be fixed once you reset it.

Here’s what happens if you reset your Kindle:

• You will lose all your data, including your books, documents, and settings.
• You will need to re-download any content that you want to keep.
• You will need to sign in to your Amazon account again.

Here’s how to reset your Kindle.

Step 1: Tap anywhere on your screen if you are reading a book. If you are on the home page, jump to Step 2.

Step 2: Tap on the downward-facing arrow icon to open the control panel and go to All Settings.

Step 3: Tap on Device Options.

Step 4: Tap on Reset.

Step 5: Tap on yes to confirm and wait for it to complete the process.

That is everything you need to do if the dictionary is not working on Kindle. If you have any further questions, look at the FAQ section below.

FAQs on Kindle Dictionary Not Working

1. How many dictionaries are available on Kindle?

Around 46 dictionaries featuring the most widely spoken languages are available on Kindle.

2. Are dictionaries free to use on Kindle?

Yes. You can download any dictionary from Kindle’s inbuilt library for free.

3. How to change the dictionary for a language while I read a book?

Long-tap on the word > tap on the name of the dictionary > Switch the default dictionary. That allows you to switch the dictionary to a different language.

Understand Every Word You Read

We hope this article helps you fix the problem and use dictionaries without any issues on your Kindle. This way, you can never have any doubts regarding a sentence that you read in a book. Further, understanding the meaning of new words also helps you get better at the language!

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About That Black's Law Dictionary Definition of Facilities Cited by ... - Election Law Blog - Dictionary

In my earlier post on Justice Alito’s laughable defense that he did not have to report the free ride on the private plane because it was “hospitality … on …facilities” owned by a person, I noted that one of the sources Alito cited was Black’s Law Dictionary. (The relevant part of Alito’s discussion: “Legal usage is similar. Black’s Law Dictionary has explained that the term ‘facilities’ may mean ‘everything necessary for the convenience of passengers.'”) I noted that I could not find it in the current version of Black’s Law Dictionary.

But now, via a 1911 Supreme Court of Oklahoma case, I found the relevant citation in Volume 19, Page 106 of a 1905 treatise, the Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure. The section provides a number of definitions of “facilities,” including the part that Justice Alito only partially quoted: “Applied to railroads it means everything necessary for the convenience of passengers and the safety and prompt transportation of freight.”

Here’s the full discussion of “facilities” in the Cyclopedia, and a mighty thin reed to hang Justice Alito’s hat on that he could ride on a private jet of a billionaire litigant without reporting it, particularly when the statute itself allows only an exception for personal provision of “food, lodging, or entertainment:”

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Apple Vision Pro 'Visual Search' Feature Can Identify Items Copy Printed Text Translate and More - MacRumors - Translation

The Apple Vision Pro headset's visionOS operating system includes a feature called "Visual Search," which sounds like it is similar to the Visual Lookup feature on the iPhone and the iPad.

With Visual Search, users can use the Vision Pro headset to get information about an item, detect and interact with text in the world around them, copy and paste printed text from the real world into apps, translate text between 17 different languages, and more.

Real world text that includes contact information, webpages, and unit conversions and similar information can be acted upon in ‌visionOS‌. So, for example, if a printed handout has a website link in it, you can scan the link with the Vision Pro, opening up a Safari window to view the website. Or, if a recipe calls for grams and you need ounces, you can convert using the headset.

Real-time text translation will also be useful for traveling and other instances when you might want to quickly translate what you're seeing in the real world. The ‌Apple Vision Pro‌ headset will be able to automatically detect text and documents, similar to how the ‌iPhone‌ can detect text in photos and allow it to be interacted with.

The Visual Search function was found in ‌visionOS‌ by Steve Moser. ‌visionOS‌ can be accessed through the latest Xcode beta at the moment, as Apple released the first version of the software earlier today.

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Book Review: The Translations of Seamus Heaney edited by Marco Sonzogni - The New York Times - Translation

THE TRANSLATIONS OF SEAMUS HEANEY, edited by Marco Sonzogni

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Over the past few years, Joe Biden has made much of quoting from Seamus Heaney’s luminous translation of Sophocles’ play “The Cure at Troy”:

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

Hope and history don’t actually rhyme in any known human language, past or present. However, Sophocles’ words (carried over into modern English) resound for many people, reverberating against our own great longing. They provoke in modern readers what Heaney, in the same translation, calls a “double-take of feeling” — that moment when actors in a distant play become “self-revealing” — that is, when they become figures by which we come to know ourselves.

Heaney translated the poetry of others in large part to discover this self-revealing double-take. Among the most important things that we learn in Marco Sonzogni’s newly collected “The Translations of Seamus Heaney” — an immense and informative gathering of the late Nobel Prize winner’s translations — are the ways that Heaney, as translator, thought less of carrying over the so-called literal, and more of finding the pitch and resonance that help an audience receive a poem.

Sonzogni peppers both introduction and notes with liberal sprinklings of Heaney’s comments to this effect: “Verse translation is not all that different from original composition,” and “In order to get a project underway, there has be a note to which the lines, and especially the first lines, can be tuned.” In the same vein: “Until this register is established,” Heaney writes, “your words … cannot induce that blessed sensation of being on the right track, musically and rhythmically.”

Heaney, to his credit, repeatedly induces that blessed sensation, fast. Having done so, he introduces us, his latter-day readers, to poets from far-flung times or places whom we might not have otherwise met.

As a translator, Heaney was an omnivore, reading across time and culture, finding poets he carried over to English with a freshness and diversity of tone — voices ancient and contemporary, male and female, Romanian, Spanish, Dutch, Old Irish, Czech, Greek. Sometimes he forged projects for a small eon: His most ambitious, like “Beowulf,” spanned decades, and his work on the medieval Irish folk tale that became “Sweeney Astray” spanned at least 10 years. Bits of translated poems would get woven into books, echoing against poems he cast in his own voice: A sequence of elegies for those lost to the sectarian violence of Heaney’s Northern Ireland would be quickly followed by a bit of Dante’s Guelphs and Ghibellines, suffering in their own underworld. Heaney’s translations would thus triangulate and echo his contemporary elegies back through their mythic proportions.

Which is to say, all along, translation was a parallel career, a parallel track, that marched alongside Heaney’s long practice of writing poetry. In my mind, I imagine them as two horses, pulling the same huge cart of Heaney’s literary imagination.

It might not sound tremendously fun to read 600 pages of someone else’s translations, but Heaney’s voice is so unusually lucid that his translations are a triple gift. There’s the ravishing selection of poems, picked by Heaney, the shrewd curator. There’s the chance to hear Heaney again — almost as if we’re being given new poems by Heaney himself. There is also the chance to see how translation and poetry reverberate across a career.

Here for instance is Heaney’s translation of a short, vital verse by the Romanian poet Marin Sorescu:

ANGLE

Overhead, the traditional lines
Of cranes:
Sonnets for countrymen.

This image is fast and radiant. Though the poem is Sorescu’s, “sonnets for countrymen” also fits Heaney, who wrote more than a few sonnets for countrymen. (Indeed, this translation chimes against Heaney’s earlier poem “Requiem for the Croppies.”) Again and again there’s a congruence, even a covalence, in the subjects Heaney picks for his own poems and those he picks for translation. One enormous example: Heaney begins his career with “Digging,” which introduces a lifelong theme of excavation. “Digging” is about watching his father dig potatoes and about the way Heaney will and will not follow his father’s path. He ends his career by translating Book VI of the “Aeneid” — the very section in which Aeneas goes underground, to the underworld, to follow his father.

Between digging potatoes and digging the dead, Heaney resurfaced material from various literary underworlds, helping make them known in his voice and dialect and time. To understand just how much he did so, it can be instructive to set two translators against each other. In Richard Howard’s translation of Baudelaire’s “Le Squellette Laboureur” (a somewhat gory poem about admiring anatomical drawings at a bookshop on a Paris quay), the figures are “mannequins” that resemble “skeletons, digging bone on bone.” In contrast, Heaney’s translation adds a precise (and very Irish) angle of anguish to the over-labored bodies. For him, the figures are “navvies” with “red slobland” around their bones.

Sonzogni’s notes situate not only the poets Heaney chose to translate, but also the moments he chose to translate them. We learn that Heaney began his embrace of translation during 1970-71, when he’d been given reprieve from emergent violence in Northern Ireland to live as a guest professor at the University of California, Berkeley. There, he read translations that Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky were making of the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. He felt what he called “the impact of translation,” and upon his return to Ireland this worldly practice became one way that he faced a troubling era of national violence.

To the benefit of us all. As we face down our own troubling era, this book is a potent reminder of literary possibility and literary imagination on a large scale. I was glad to have the most ambitious translation projects gathered, “The Cure at Troy” among them. I felt grateful for the small ones, too — including a particularly lyrical take on the 19th- and 20th-century Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, the 18th-century Gaelic poet Eoghan Rua O Suilleabhain’s poem “Poet to Blacksmith” and a beautiful poem called “Inhabited by a Song,” by the still-living Romanian poet Ana Blandiana, whose verse begins:

The song isn’t mine,
It just passes through me sometimes,
Uncomprehended, untamed,
Lightly dressed in my name;
The way the gods in the old days
Would pass among people
Dressed in a cloud.

Here, Heaney dresses old songs in new clothes. He frees them to pass through us, too. “An original work exists not in order to be perfect but in order to engender itself repeatedly in new translations,” he is quoted as saying. Of course, for any new translation to be heard, to keep engendering, it paradoxically requires a perfect disguise of its own. Over and over again, to many varied verses, Heaney, with a touch both sure and shape-shifting, offers exactly that.

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Tess Taylor’s most recent book of poetry is “Rift Zone.” An anthology she edited, “Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens and the Hands That Tend Them,” will be released in August.

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THE TRANSLATIONS OF SEAMUS HEANEY | Edited by Marco Sonzogni | 687 pp. | Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $50

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Carnegie medal for childrens books goes to a translation for the first time - The Guardian - Translation

Welsh writer Manon Steffan Ros has won the 2023 Yoto Carnegie medal, the UK’s most prestigious children’s books award, the first time a translated book has won in its 87-year history.

Judges described Ros’s young adult novel The Blue Book of Nebo, set in a post-apocalyptic Wales, as both “heartbreaking” and “rich with Welsh heritage”. The work, originally published in Welsh, was translated by Ros herself.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” Ros said. “I used to see the word Carnegie on the cover of my favourite books when I was a child, so this means a great deal to me.”

The medal for illustration went to Jeet Zdung for Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear, by Vietnamese wildlife conservationist Trang Nguyen. The book, which features manga-inspired illustrations and watercolour scenes, is based on a true story about a young woman working on her own to save a bear. It is the second year in a row that a graphic novel has won the illustration prize, formerly known as the Kate Greenaway medal.

The winners of the medals were announced at a London ceremony on Wednesday hosted by Lauren Child, who won the illustration award in 2000 for her first Charlie and Lola book.

Ros’s novel charts the relationship between a mother and son who struggle to survive in their isolated hilltop home after a nearby nuclear disaster leaves them without electricity or running water. “As this is the first book in translation to win the Carnegie, my hopes are that readers, and particularly publishers, are more open to books in translation,” Ros said.

The chair of judges, librarian Janet Noble, said of Ros’s novel: “The world-building and distinct voices of the two main characters, the son and his mother, are expertly realised and the reader is compelled to question their own relationship with the modern world”.

Ros lives in Tywyn, north Wales, and has written more than 20 books for adults and children. The original Welsh version of The Blue Book of Nebo, Llyfr Glas Nebo, won the 2019 Wales book of the year.

Ros and Zdung both receive a £5,000 cash prize and £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice. Ros is planning to donate to Tywyn library, where she wrote some of her books when she didn’t have internet access at home, while Zdung will support libraries that Nguyen has set up near Vietnamese national parks.

Zdung said he hopes Saving Sorya “will offer a deep knowledge of wildlife while impressing upon young people the importance of its conservation”. In preparation to illustrate the book, he conducted field research in Vietnam and Cambodia. “Roaming through the jungle and volunteering in a bear rescue centre provided me with firsthand experiences that I used to enrich the characters’ lives and make them authentic,” he added.

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Noble said that Saving Sorya “is a beautiful story, elegantly told, which brings together a global view of conservation and an empowering true story of an inspiring female environmentalist, told through dazzling manga art and watercolours. Jeet has crafted every illustration to immerse the reader, just as Manon draws the reader in completely with her vivid, deliberate prose.”

The prizes were judged by a panel of 12 librarians, who selected winners from a shortlist of seven for the writing medal and six for the illustration award.

In a separate prize, children from reading groups in schools and libraries also voted for their preferred winners, who each received a medal. This year’s “shadowers’ choice” award for writing went to I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys, who previously won the headline Carnegie medal in 2017 for Salt to the Sea. Joe Todd-Stanton won the shadowers’ illustration medal for The Comet.

The Carnegie medals were established in 1936 for writing and 1955 for illustration, open to books in the English language. This means that in theory translations into English have always been eligible. Previous winners of the writing award include Arthur Ransome, CS Lewis, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Phillip Pullman; earlier illustration winners include Raymond Briggs, Shirley Hughes and Quentin Blake.

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Roman Holiday review movie magic gets lost in translation - The Guardian - Translation

Jeremy Sams’ production of Roman Holiday opens in Bath the same week that Prince Harry’s phone hacking trial is being heard in the high court, and some material could come straight from a witness statement. “She’s fair game,” photographer Irving tells his journalist partner Joe: “It’s always open season on princesses”.

It’s one of the lines that has travelled best from the screen to the stage – and across the 70 years since Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck established their memorable chemistry in the original film. Paul Blake’s version – first seen in 2001, reworked in 2017 and receiving its UK premiere here – fashions the script into a jukebox musical with Cole Porter songs, the best known of which are aggressively telegraphed in the overture to reassure audiences they’ll recognise them.

Rebecca Collingwood plays Anne, a royal heiress trapped by duty and protocol on her visit to Italy. (When she longs to taste authentic spaghetti and meatballs, her countess aunt tells her the chef will make some when they get home to the palace.) She escapes her gilded cage into the arms of Joe, who grudgingly takes her back to his apartment only to discover that the scoop of his career is now in his bed, wearing his pyjamas.

The movie’s screwball set-up never quite delivers here despite the familiar bickering (“It’s Keats!” “It’s Shelley!”) and we’re landed with a love song before the leads have demonstrated any interest in each other. The famous Vespa ride around the city fares particularly poorly on stage, although Francis O’Connor’s design provides much-needed continental vibes to a show whose American songbook feel leaves it short on Italian flavouring.

There are charismatic performances, including Adrian Der Gregorian’s wonderfully comic Irving and Tania Mathurin’s flamboyant Francesca. Alongside a talented ensemble, Michael D Xavier’s voice soars in the role of Joe. His chemistry with Collingwood blossoms in the second half and their climactic kiss is the moment that the story makes the most sense as a musical. But the need to crowbar in Porter’s bigger hits slows the story into a parade of lovelorn wistfulness, one that ultimately undercuts the movie’s celebrated ending.

• At Theatre Royal Bath until 1 July

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